


Deep Dark and Candlelight

by fabfemmeboy



Series: Sincere Baked Goods [12]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 07:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13071951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabfemmeboy/pseuds/fabfemmeboy
Summary: As Kurt returns to McKinley, he finds things somehow more hectic and dangerous than he left them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's where the story starts ceasing to be just Puckurt. There are at least a few pairing shifts and twists along the way.

A/N 1: Here's where the story starts ceasing to be just Puckurt. There are at least a few pairing shifts and twists along the way, so I'll do my best to label things as accurately as possible.   
  
A/N 2: I've been neglecting my fic for Kurt Big Bang, so that needs to take priority this week. I apologize that the updates will come more slowly here for the next 6-8 days or so, but I figure with the holiday there is plenty to do other than read, right? I haven't forgotten about all of you, I swear.  
  
  
  
  
  
"I never thought I would find shopping stressful," Kurt stated as he walked along the upper level of the mall, looking down at the stores on lower levels from the balcony.  
  
"Really?"  
  
Kurt shot Blaine a look of feigned annoyance. "Look at you - you have bags on both arms, your list is done. Your parents are bought for, Wes and David and a bunch of the other guys. You've managed to find something to buy in almost every store, plus a variety of clothes for yourself. I, on the other hand..." He held up two small bags containing accessories. "What's wrong with this picture?"  
  
"You'll find things," Blaine assured him. "Who's still left on your list?"  
  
Kurt sighed and sat on the bench, crossing his legs dramatically. "Tina's done, and Quinn, and Mercedes. I ordered Charlie's online and it should be here Tuesday. Carole's partly done, and I know nothing I'd get for my dad would be at the mall anyway."  
  
"So who's left?"  
  
"Finn, Puck, Dad, plus possibly Sam, Artie, and Mike."  
  
"So...the straight guys," Blaine summed up.  
  
Kurt looked up at him. "Exactly. Yes."  
  
"Puck doesn't seem like the easiest boyfriend to buy for, either."  
  
"I wouldn't have anything to compare it to," Kurt pointed out. He sighed and looked forlornly left towards Macys, then right towards Dillards - buying any sweater Puck might actually wear would about kill him from boredom. "You've had boyfriends at Christmas before, right?" he asked as he stood gracefully, if a bit dramatically, and led the way to the escalators.   
  
"One," Blaine stated. "Boyfriend, singular. But yes, we dated from October until February."  
  
"How do you manage it?" he asked. "The perfect present - something he'll like, personal, but not  _too_  personal? Romantic but not so much that he'll say it makes him want to hurl? It's the first actual present of the relationship and it has to be absolutely flawless. Say something about us, about him, about how I feel about him, about-"  
  
"Kurt." Blaine put his hand on his friend's arm. "I think you're putting an awful lot of pressure on this one present."  
  
"How can I not?"  
  
"Relax."  
  
"Easy for you to say. You're not trying to buy a date present," Kurt stated, and Blaine gave a faint smile as if to say 'not for lack of trying,' but Kurt continued. "And Puck's so...straight. He doesn't collect things, we don't really have inside jokes that don't involve cupcakes laced with illegal substances, I vaguely know his taste in movies and that he plays video games on like every system ever, but other than that. I mean, if I were buying this kind of present for...you, for example," he said, and Blaine's eyes widened slightly. "I could come up with a half-dozen things off the top of my head. I can figure out a few things to buy Finn on a brotherish level. But trying to merge the boyfriend part and Puck's questionable affinity for games where you get extra points for running over hookers..."  
  
"You say that like he's the least romantic guy ever," Blaine pointed out.  
  
Kurt smiled softly with a bit of an embarrassed eye roll. "I can't exactly give him a big touchdown point-and-dance," he replied. "And short of dressing up in a catsuit..."  
  
"He seems like the kind of guy who'd like that." Blaine was careful to keep his disdain covered, for the most part. It wasn't that he didn't like Puck per se - after all, the guy was letting him stay there when they'd met maybe three times. He just never understood the badboy thing. Charlie went on and on about it after seeing Puck in the parking lot, and Kurt obviously went for it just fine, but he couldn't picture ever voluntarily dating one of the guys from his old school who used to give him crap.  
  
His old-old school now, he guessed.  
  
And he couldn't figure out what in the world Kurt would talk about with the boyfriend of his. Sure, the guy was easy on the eyes and could be charming when he wanted to be, but what the hell did they have in common anyway? Kurt's assessment of Puck's interests seemed dead-on, Blaine concluded, assuming the previous night had been typical.  
  
"Oh, I'm sure he would," Kurt replied. Hell if he understood why, and he was as surprised as anyone (except maybe Puck) that the guy found him attractive - the guy who had dated Santana and every hot curvy girl he could get his hands on (literally), plus Quinn in all her pretty blonde glory...Sure, Kurt knew his hips were more pearshaped than he would have liked, and his butt was more curved than a lot of guys' - which he sensed might be serve him well when he got to New York and was trying to get noticed by cute chorus boys, if internet lore and Queer as Folk were anything to judge by - but he definitely didn't look like a girl, not even in a wig. Somehow Puck found him hot anyway - not that he was complaining, not in the least, not as long as he reaped the benefits of it. It still just confused him a little was all...in a good way, of course. "Are you settling in okay?" he asked as he began to flick through a rack of boring sweaters and wondered what size "frankenteen" translated to.   
  
"Yeah," Blaine nodded. "It's kind of weird staying in someone else's house and everything, but it's not bad."  
  
"You didn't kill each other," Kurt replied with a teasing smile.  
  
"It helped that he was out celebrating quite a bit of the night."  
  
"Where in that room did you find to actually sleep, anyway?" he asked. He knew Puck's room - very,  _very_  intimately - and knew there was usually barely space for him to pretend to hang out before they moved to Puck's bed. It wasn't so much that the room was small, as that Puck tended to not bother with such boring and unimportant tasks as picking up his dirty clothes.   
  
"He moved the desk down to the basement, said something about how you're the only one who ever uses it anyway. The air mattress isn't great but it's not awful, and it's near an outlet so I can plug in my computer and chill with a DVD."  
  
"And your parents really don't care?"  
  
Blaine shook his head. "I told them I was going to a boarding school in California. They won't notice until they don't get a tuition bill. Might get suspicious if they check the bank card statement and realize it's all being used in Lima, but I can't even remember the last time anyone but their financial planner looked at any of that," he said with a roll of his eyes and a kind of grin.   
  
Kurt thought it sounded like the saddest thing in the world - his dad had been out of commission for two weeks and had  _brain damage_  and still thought enough to ask who he'd been staying with and for how long and whether he was getting his homework done despite spending all evening at the hospital. He wondered idly if that's why Blaine was so outgoing with everyone, trying to find someone - anyone - to talk to, who would notice if he was around or not. Or maybe it was just Blaine's personality; after all, if he hated people blaming his mother dying when he was young for his being gay and obsessive with strong, classic female role models, Blaine probably wouldn't appreciate the amateur psychoanalysis.   
  
"Anyway," Blaine continued, holding up a pair of jeans to contemplate whether he needed them, "It doesn't matter. Tomorrow you're walking into that school with one of us on either side and no one's going to screw with you. That's what's important in all of this."  
  
Kurt wished he were even half that confident right about now.  
  
* * * * *  
  
He was fine.  
  
No, really - he managed to get a little sleep, he was fine when he woke up to the alarm, he was fine during his shower. He was even fine during his post-shower skincare regimen with the daytime toner and moisturizer and a dab of concealer to obscure the slight bags under his eyes.  
  
Then came the time to select his clothes for the day.  
  
As much as he despised the uniforms for their conformity and their combination of colours that looked like they'd been selected by Stevie Wonder and the tacky red trim on the jacket and the perfectly boring and straight-laced red and blue tie, he had to admit that he'd gotten kind of frighteningly  _used to_  them. He was out of practice in the selection of a properly-scandalous and statement-making ensemble.  
  
More than that, he was trying to figure out precisely the line he wanted to walk. He'd blended in at Dalton, where he could have stood out without fear of retribution; he was gong to stand out at McKinley no matter what he did. Just how much did he want to make himself an instant target?  
  
He laughed out loud at the thought. As if he wasn't a target there just by existing. The clothes rarely had much to do with it - the Gaga costume notwithstanding. He'd gotten harassed wearing nothing more ridiculous than a shawl-collar cardigan, boots, jeans, and a buttondown shirt, so it wasn't as though anything he could wear would somehow immunize him against the onslaught of harassment he was expecting. Even if he was willing to cover up everything about himself, to hide like that, it wasn't going to do any good.  
  
May as well go all out then.  
  
He put on his iPod as he sorted through his closet. Maybe he should reorganize it by designer and inspiration, he wondered idly. It was currently by color and type of garment, but that had its own problems - jackets versus sweaters versus sweater jackets, for example.  
  
_And that's the revolutionary costume for today_  he sang along with the music.  
_To show those polo-riders in khakis and top-siders,  
Just what a revolutionary costume has to say,  
It can't be ordered from LL Bean-_  Abercrombie would have been more appropriate, but it didn't rhyme.  
_There's more to living than hunter green_  He changed the lyric - no boy in McKinley would be caught dead in kelly green.  
_And that's the revolution I mean  
Da-da-da da da..._  
  
  
He began to pull out options, making up his own lyrics as he went along.  
  
_You fight the school board  
In your two-tone cords  
Paired with black boots that are all adorned-_  He knew it didn't quite rhyme, but wasn't bad for extemporizing.  
_With rhinestones and studs,  
That land with a thud  
So assholes get the gist_  Not entirely inspired, but it worked, he thought.  
  
_With a grey zip-tunic doublet-_  
  
He wondered if he should select a sweater because it would rhyme more easily, then realized that might be the most ridiculous reason for selecting an item of clothing he'd ever heard.  
  
_And a black and white-striped slim-fit  
Shirt, you can be with Cousin Lee on Mister Blackwell's list,_  he sang, the last part (mostly) matching up with the original song.  
_The black-cropped-leather-Gaga-glove hides the fist._  
  
He didn't care that the last line had way too many syllables; he sang it fast enough that it didn't matter. And full-length-velvet wasn't exactly his style.  
  
He could do this. He grabbed his leather bag and pulled his black trench from its hook, then walked upstairs.   
  
He could do this.  
  
As he opened the basement door, he could hear Finn talking in the kitchen. "It'll be fine."  
  
"I mean it." His dad's voice had that serious 'I'm not messing around, kid' tone that Kurt had learned to avoid when he was four. It was the tone that usually meant he wasn't in trouble per se but was about to get a lecture about something his dad didn't think he was old enough to really understand but felt the need to warn him of anyway. It was the one when his dad told him to stop wearing the knee-length sweaters, or not to talk to straight guys, or to be careful playing with the girls too much at recess. "I can't follow him around that school, and if I go around shoving all the kids who shove him they'd throw me in jail. You've gotta look out for him."  
  
"He'll be fine."  
  
"You were the one saying you could keep him safe, Finn, I need to know you're gonna. That you're not gonna suddenly decide it's not-...look, I know tagging after your little brother's not fun, and I know you've got your own pressures at school and all that. But all he's got is you, that delinquent boyfriend of his that used to lead the bullying against him, and this Blaine kid. I like the kid fine, he got Kurt out of McKinley for a few months at least and any guy willing to give all that up has gotta be either stupid or really loyal. But he's smaller than Kurt and he doesn't know anyone at that school. Not like you do. So Finn...you gotta promise me-"  
  
"I've got it," Finn stated solemnly.  
  
"Good."  
  
There was a long silence, which Kurt took as his cue to enter. "Morning, Dad," he said in as cheerful a voice as he could muster. From the way his father looked him up and down with a skeptical look - eyebrows knitted together, jaw set, eyes narrow - Kurt knew he wasn't buying it.   
  
"Hey."  
  
"Have you eaten yet?" Kurt asked as he started his own breakfast, even though he was starting to get nervous enough that he doubted he'd be able to eat anything.  
  
"Yeah - don't worry, approved stuff. Finn's stopped helping me sneak food after Carole threatened him," Burt added with a sly grin, and Finn looked sheepish.  
  
"Yeah, dude, I don't help him sneak bacon or whatever."  
  
Kurt smiled faintly, but his stomach was starting to flutter. He should be on the road already, he felt like, he should be wearing the uniform he hated on the way to the school he loved - he should be thinking about what Charlie would say about the rumors about Versace's new collection and what Ethan thought of the new moisturizer he'd suggested. He should be rehearsing a capella harmonies in his car while he drove along Route 33 instead of getting ready to go pick up Puck and Blaine and go to McKinley.  
  
Why hadn't he just said yes to the homeschooling thing when he had the chance? For that matter, he'd still be asleep now if he'd decided on that!  
  
...No. He'd be fine, he assured himself. Finn was already standing there, ready to go, looking perfectly normal and non-harassable in his letter jacket and straightboy clothes. Puck would be a little more black-clad but with the same idea. And Blaine, with his experience in all of this...  
  
He could do this.  
  
"Let's go," he urged Finn with a forced smile. "We still have to go across town before we get to school."  
  
"You call me if anything happens," Burt ordered.  
  
"I will," Kurt assured him, but he had a hunch his definition of "anything" would be a little different than his father's.  
  
By the time they arrived chez Puckerman, Kurt was looking forward to whatever denial-laden reassurances he could get. Something involving snarky comments and telling him he was overreacting while making out and grabbing his ass.  
  
Instead he just got a bitchy boyfriend. " _I_  was ready twenty fucking minutes ago.  _He's_  still fighting with his  _goddamn hair!_  Puck called in the direction of the stairs.  
  
So much for 'They haven't killed each other.'  
  
Kurt sighed and shook his head, brushing past Puck to go see what was taking Blaine so long. They still had to make sure he had time to find his locker and get his bearings and all that before class started, and while he was certainly not the master of getting ready quickly in the morning, they needed to get going soon. Maybe he could help - after all, he certainly had enough experience in styling even the most troublesome hair. "Blaine?" he called at the top of the stairs.  
  
There was a muffled cough, then an awkward, "In here," from the bathroom.   
  
Kurt stood outside the door. "We should go soon," he called through the door.  
  
"Yeah. Sorry about that, I was just...it's been awhile since I had options in the morning, so I underestimated how much..."  
  
Blaine sounded...strange. Kurt wasn't exactly sure strange  _how_ , but definitely not like himself. Kind of hesitant. Nervous, Kurt realized. Not like he could blame him -  _he_  was nervous as hell, and he at least knew what he was getting into. He had friends there, and a boyfriend, and a stepbrother under strict orders to watch his back. Blaine knew no one there well - except him, of course.  
  
He'd been trying all morning to get his masks back, to pull himself back into the indifferent, haughty ice-queen he'd been the last time around; he knew if he didn't, he'd get eaten alive. But hearing Blaine, who always sounded so confident and open, with jitters in his voice...he sighed softly and asked, "Why are we doing this again?"  
  
The door opened and he stood face to face with Blaine. "I've been asking that all morning," Blaine offered with a lopsided grin.   
  
"It's not too late if you want to run," Kurt stated. It was true - Blaine didn't have an independent reason to be there.   
  
"Not if you can't," Blaine replied. He reached over and grabbed Kurt's hand the way he had the first morning at Dalton and Kurt smiled faintly but genuinely at the memory. "Buddy system, right?"  
  
"Right," Kurt nodded, drawing in a slow breath.  
  
"We'll be fine," Blaine stated with more confidence than either of them felt.  
  
From downstairs, Kurt could hear the opening music of Madden - he hated that he knew the sound of that insipid game, but between the two guys playing it he couldn't be entirely surprised. "We should get down there before they get completely engrossed in the thing. Once they start..."  
  
Blaine laughed softly. "It's addicting - they can't help it." He squeezed Kurt's hand, then asked, "I look okay?"   
  
Kurt stepped back to look - perfectly-fitting dark wash jeans, light grey graphic t, black track jacket with narrow black tennis shoes that looked like they were a combination of leather and faux-suede, curls moussed in a way that framed his face and made Kurt kind of want to tug on them. He shoved that imagery aside as quickly and as deeply as he could, but he couldn't prevent a "Perfect," from escaping his lips.  
  
Blaine grinned, seeming a lot more relaxed and more like the guy Kurt was used to seeing, and they descended the stairs to find Puck and Finn on the living room floor, game controllers in their hands. "Ha! Suck it, dude!" Puck declared as he...Kurt had no idea, but he knew it obviously meant winning.  
  
"That's Kurt's job," Finn replied, and Kurt's eyes widened. The joke was awkward but good-natured, with no sign of derision or disgust. Maybe his stepbrother really was starting to adjust to things...at least, around Puck. That was something, right?  
  
"It's true," Kurt replied with a smirk, and both heads turned to them. "Ready to go?"  
  
"Sure dude," Finn said, pushing himself off the floor and heading out to the SUV.   
  
As Blaine went to the front hall to grab his peacoat from the hook, Puck reached over and snagged Kurt's wrist. "Get down here," he urged with a grin that on anyone else Kurt would call 'flirty' but on Puck could only be described as 'sexy-as-hell.'   
  
Kurt grinned with a roll of his eyes like he still couldn't figure out what had Puck continuously coming back into his pants, but he knelt over Puck's lap. "Yes?"  
  
Puck pulled him down closer, fingers threading through the hair at the back of Kurt's head. "Haven't seen you since Saturday and I don't even get a freaking kiss?"  
  
"You were busy ranting," Kurt replied.  
  
"Not the point." Puck pulled Kurt into an open-mouth kiss, grunting softly as Kurt's tongue traced across his bottom lip. Kurt rested his forearms on Puck's shoulders, bracing his hands against the edge of the couch to get a little more leverage.  
  
Blaine stood stiffly at the edge of the living room, hands in the pockets of his open coat. This was going to be the awkward part about living with Puck - not the fact that he was crashing on some guy's floor he barely knew, not the part where he was definitely gay and the other guy wasn't - which was never an issue at Dalton but he knew would have been an issue at his old school, and not the part where technically he didn't think Puck's mom actually knew he was living there.   
  
Watching the guy he was living with making out with the guy he considered his best friend...there was no way for that  _not_  to be awkward as hell. Gay, straight, undecided - didn't matter. That was always going to be weird.   
  
But the part where he was gay made it a little more...complicated. And not just because it meant he had kind of his own personal live-action porn - or at least the potential for it.  
  
But he wasn't going there. He absolutely wasn't going there. Not when life was complicated enough for everyone right now.  
  
He cleared his throat and watched as Kurt jerked back from the kiss, then blushed and grinned knowingly at Puck like this happened every time they were interrupted. "We should go, right?" Blaine asked.  
  
"Right," Kurt nodded. He stood and ran his hands over the back of his hair, where Puck's hand had clenched. He wasn't sure  _why_  he felt so awkward making out with his boyfriend in front of his best friend, but he did feel like he was breaching some kind of gay etiquette.   
  
* * * * *  
  
McKinley looked exactly the same.  
  
In some ways it felt like he'd never left, like the last six weeks had all been some kind of glorious dream - like the dreams where he ran off to New York and lived in a fabulous loft and worked as Tim Gunn's mini-me while he spent his evenings charming the pants off choir boys in piano bars in the Village.   
  
In other ways, it felt like he'd aged a hundred years in the six weeks since he left and now was trying to go back and be the same person he'd been all that time ago.   
  
Finn was talking a hundred miles a minute, trying to explain where stuff was to Blaine and give him the low-down on every person they passed. All that registered for Kurt were the words "like" and "stuff" and "dude." He kept looking around as the parking lot moved past him in slow motion. People were staring at him, pointing, talking, and while he logically knew it was just trying to figure out what he was doing back and who this new kid was, it made him edgy. He'd been used to this once, he knew that, but it was like he couldn't remember how he'd made it stop feeling so...  
  
He knew at some point he didn't feel disgusting when he walked through the parking lot in the mornings, but he didn't remember how to get to that feeling. He remembered there being masks, he remembered forcing himself to be strong, but when he tried to think of how to pull that personae back on, it was like there was a piece missing and he couldn't quite find it.  
  
He felt Puck's bicep graze against his shoulder blade as a familiar hand worked its way into his back pocket. "We got your back," Puck assured him.  
  
"I'm fine," Kurt stated. That felt normal. It sounded like he thought he remembered sounding before.  
  
But Puck didn't buy it. He used to, Kurt thought. Maybe he wasn't as good at this as he used to be.  
  
Or maybe Puck knew him too well now.  
  
Kurt wasn't sure if that was good or not.  
  
Puck's masks were on in full force. Not so much the masks, Kurt concluded, but the personae. The "Don't even try to freaking mess with me, punk" badass that Kurt knew was like 90% fake, even if he did have the muscle to back it up. After Saturday he was kind of concerned that Puck was going to get himself thrown back in lock-up for beating up someone who looked at them the wrong way. Even if Kurt found it kind of sweet and it felt good to know he wasn't quite as isolated as he had been, it wasn't entirely reassuring.  
  
"Okay," Kurt said as they stepped inside. "Your locker should be right down-"  
  
He would later blame the fact that he was peering at Blaine's folded class schedule for the fact that he didn't see the group approach until it was too late. The wave of cold hit his face so quickly that it took his breath away and took him a moment to look up. As he did, through the purple blur and sting of corn syrup, he thought he could see Azimio, Karofsky, and two other guys from the football team.  
  
Not that it mattered. Not like they were the only ones.  
  
"Not cool, dude!" Finn was yelling, trying to get the ice out of his face; he looked like he was only succeeding in smearing it harder across his eyes.   
  
"Yeah?" Karofsky's voice came closer as he stepped into Finn's face. "You thought we were cool? That why your fag friend here got me kicked off the team?"  
  
"You started it," Puck replied defiantly.  
  
"You were practically trying to rub against me in there, homo - keep your filthy AIDS-paws the fuck away from me."  
  
"Hey!" Kurt would never have believed he'd be grateful to hear Mr. Schue's voice, but in that moment - and that moment only - he was. "Everything okay, guys?"  
  
"Yeah," Karofsky said slowly, eyes narrowing at Finn. "S'fine." He backed away, eyes still locked on the foursome, and headed off down the hall.  
  
"You guys okay?"  
  
"Yeah, Mr. Schue, we got this," Puck assured him.  
  
"Yeah, thanks, Mr. Schue," Finn added. "Just, y'know. Corn syrup in my eye."  
  
"Kurt - I'd say 'welcome back,' but all things considered-"  
  
"Thank you." His tone was colder than the icy concoction working its way down the back of his shirt. His posture stiffened; he wasn't about to shiver.  
  
"See you at rehearsal - 3:30," he replied cheerfully and walked off. As oblivious as ever - some things never changed.  
  
Kurt let out a deep sigh and looked at Blaine. The boy stood rigid, almost completely still except for the barely perceptible tense quiver of his jaw and shoulders. His once-well-coiffed curls drooped limply down around his head, red dripping from the points. The cherry coloring made parts of his shirt look almost purple now, and a few dark splashes around the tops of his jeans would need rinsed out soon so they wouldn't stick to his leg hair once they dried.  
  
But all Kurt could see was the completely terrified look in Blaine's eyes.   
  
Oh god. He really hadn't known what he was getting into, had he?


	2. Chapter 2

The bathroom closest to the choir room was the most frequently empty first thing in the morning...with the possible exception of the one that connected to the locker room, but Kurt thought that was a bad idea, all things considered.  
  
"I can't believe I forgot to bring extra clothes," Kurt lamented as he dabbed at the collar of his sweater. "I'm used to having a stash in my locker with additional options in the back of my car."  
  
"They threw slushies at us," Blaine said slowly, staring at his reflection.   
  
"Yes," Kurt replied matter-of-factly. His trench was already rinsed off and drip-drying over the back of a chair. But the sweater...the purple was never going to come out of the almost gauzy light grey wool, he feared. "Looks like I'm back to single-handedly paying Dylan's daughter's tuition at OSU," he stated with a dramatic sigh.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"My dry-cleaner. Ironically enough, I saw less of him when I wore an entirely dryclean-only uniform every day."  
  
"Oh," Blaine blinked before repeating, "They threw slushies at us."  
  
Kurt drew in a slow breath. Blaine looked like he had moved from terrified into almost numb shock, and it made his chest ache. This was all his fault. Blaine was only here, was only looking like that, because of  _him_.   
  
The guilt wasn't the only problem. He had no idea how to simultaneously be the guy Blaine knew, the guy Blaine was looking like he desperately wanted reassurance from, and still get through school in one piece. If he let himself be open like that, he would be too vulnerable. But closing himself off that much around Blaine of all people seemed so... He could do it around Puck if he had to. He'd done it for long enough before letting the walls slowly lower. But he'd never been that guy with Blaine, not since the first time they met.  
  
Maybe he just needed to figure out how to get Blaine behind the walls with him. It worked with Puck, at least.  
  
Kurt adjusted his trench coat over the back of the chair so the wet section was entirely folded over, then pulled the chair over to the sink. "Let's work on your hair," he suggested. He still sounded stiff and awkward, but Blaine complied. He twisted the taps and, while he waited for a decent temperature to develop, he offered, "You're lucky in the clothes department, at least - you mostly wear things that are washable, so it's not quite as damaging. It will wash out of cotton, mostly. I have a great pretreater."  
  
"So they do this a lot." It was meant to be a question, but it came out as a statement. If Kurt was this used to things, this blase about it all, that meant it happened quite a bit.  
  
Kurt couldn't answer him - he didn't have the heart to. How do you tell someone they gave up their dream school for the hellhole that was McKinley?   
  
"You told me you were having trouble," Blaine said slowly, as if he were trying to remember every word Kurt had used, attempting to see the warning signs in hindsight. "You said they were making your life hell, you didn't...go into detail about it. I assumed it was like my old school where they would yell slurs at me and take my things and once or twice sabotaged my experiments in chemistry - never with anything combustible or flammable. You didn't say anything about throwing things like this."  
  
It hadn't occurred to Kurt until that moment that there were different kinds of bullying. He almost laughed at the realization as he guided Blaine's hair back under the faucet as best he could and began to carefully wash the sticky red mess out of the already-tangled curls. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before - he  _knew_  kind of instinctively, he knew some things hurt more than others and he knew some things didn't even bother him anymore because they were so minor by comparison. But for some reason it hadn't occurred to him that when Blaine said he'd been bullied at his old school and no one cared, there was a chance it was something other than his own experience.   
  
"The slushies aren't a homophobic thing," Kurt offered as his ran his fingers slowly through Blaine's hair. In another context this would be vaguely erotic. Now it was far more practical, but there was a tenderness in Kurt's movements. "It's pure status. Glee club isn't cool here like at Dalton, it's only slightly above the chess club. Depending on who from the AV club has managed to rig up cameras in a locker room lately, we may or may not be above them on the social ladder."  
  
"Doesn't make them sting any less - literally," Blaine added with a weak smile.  
  
"No," Kurt concluded dully. "Except it means it's not personal, which does help a little. Not with the clothes, but emotionally. The targeted bullying always feels far more...violative."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
Kurt tried to decide what to tell and how much. "Right after Puck and I went public, the student body writ large decided I had 'converted' the pinnacle of heterosexual masculinity," he explained quietly. His voice was even, controlled, distant, like he was talking about a not-very-interesting documentary he had seen. Actually, Blaine had heard him sound more excited talking about documentaries than this. "Most of the student body refused to touch me even more than they had before. A few went so far as to take masks and gloves from biology class. That was worse than being slammed into a locker." His fingers stilled in Blaine's hair. "Most of the time it's not like that," he offered quietly, the mask slipping just long enough for Blaine to see the glimmer of the Kurt he recognized - only sadder than he usually saw. "Usually it's slushies, Now that Puck's on our side, the dumpster tossing is a dying art form so you probably don't need to worry about that. Shoving is primarily from Azimio and Karofsky, and Karofsky's on the warpath this week thanks to Puck, so be careful with that part."   
  
His fingers began to move again as the walls went back up. "You should start carrying mousse with you. All I have in my bag is matched to my hair, and I think we both know from the unfortunate gel incident of October 2010 that they're definitely not interchangeable," he added with a light snark. It had taken him hours to work all of Blaine's helmet-hair gel out. He twisted the knobs to 'off' and handed Blaine a small towel. "Come on. We should get to class." He flicked his own hair back into place, shoulders squaring as he prepared to face the rest of the already-long day. He draped his still-wet trench over his arm and slung his bag over his shoulder, then retrieved Blaine's scarf and held it out. Blaine stared back at Kurt like he didn't know who the guy standing in front of him was.  
  
Kurt wished he didn't know either. Unfortunately it was all too familiar.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Most of the time, Puck forgot that Kurt was younger than he was. The guy had that total adult thing going on, always having to be responsible about shit, and now that he wasn't so short and didn't look twelve anymore, it was easy not to remember that he was a year younger.  
  
Except at school.  
  
Because if Kurt were the same age, they'd be in the same classes. Okay, not most of them - Kurt was one of those freaks who  _liked_  school , so he was in all those classes with geeks and losers who couldn't think of anything more interesting to do than study or shit. But at least he'd be in the same homeroom as Finn, since it was all by last name by grade, and they'd probably have gym together, and those were the wild west of high school. Teachers didn't do shit, and they couldn't even try and distract people with lame-ass work to do, which meant dudes got away with a lot of garbage they couldn't normally do.  
  
Puck would know - those had been his primo ass-kicking times back in the day.   
  
Blaine wasn't in any of his classes except gym - another studying freak type - but at least the Day One Lockerroom Report was all quiet on the western front (crap, speaking of which, go get the movie before the English test on Tuesday. The book was super long, and he heard something about half-naked French chicks in the movie).   
  
Lunch was totally his favourite part of the day. He liked practice and stuff, and glee club was kinda great when he didn't want to shove something in Rachel's mouth to make her shut up, but at lunch there wasn't a single person trying to tell him what the fuck to do. He needed that; after like four freaking long hours of classes, with another three stretching ahead of him, he got to just hang out and do whatever.  
  
He saw Kurt enter the lunchroom with Blaine at his side, talking about something in some language he didn't understand - French, probably, that's what Kurt was taking, and he knew it wasn't Spanish. He gave a kind of nod and eyebrow raise in Kurt's direction - which Kurt returned with a distracted smile - then went back to a very important conversation with Sam about the suckiness of Guitar Hero.   
  
What? It was totally cheating - there were like four buttons, no strings, and people thought they were actually playing something. And not playing something like playing a video game; fuckers thought they were playing  _guitar_. They weren't. Even those keyboards with keys that lit up to tell you what key to push next were less lame than that because at least you were still playing an instrument.   
  
(Puck had had one of those once. His mom wanted him to learn to play piano - it was part of her attempt to get him away from playing guitar "just like your father." He wanted to learn it faster so he could be freaking done already. The thing went too fast and he threw it out the window. It landed on Jacob ben Israel who was playing with that weird Van de Kamp kid next door - so freaking worth it.)  
  
He and Kurt had discovered sometime around the end of their first week of dating that they weren't going to be one of those couples who hung out at lunch or whatever. For one thing, he liked being able to hang out with the guys on the team, which he didn't really do much when he had someone he was fucking regularly. For another, Mercedes got really pissed if Kurt didn't sit over with them at lunch. It wasn't a reputation thing - he was totally badass enough to make dating a dude look cool, and they made out in the hallway often enough that everyone knew they were together; it was practical. No one else did the coupley thing at lunch, either - Quinn was over with the Cheerios and Rachel was god-only-knows-where annoying the crap out of god-only-knows-who.   
  
But there was one key detail he'd missed.  
  
He watched as Kurt and Blaine made their way from the lunch line over towards the table where Mercedes, Tina, and Artie were waiting for them. Blaine looked vaguely disgusted by the contents of his tray while Kurt was haughtily dispensing advice about which mystery meats to stay away from. As Puck glanced over towards the clock on the wall, he saw someone else watching the guys walk towards their table.  
  
Karofsky.   
  
How had he never considered this before? If homeroom and the locker room were the wild west, lunch was like warfare during the zombie apocalypse - total anarchy with way too much artillery in easy reach.   
  
It hadn't been a problem before Kurt transferred, even with all the crap he figured out later was going on. If anything, everyone had been trying to stay  _away_  from him and avoid touching him or whatever. But after at least one slushie already, and with the kind of creepy glare on Karofsky's face...  
  
They'd be goners if he didn't do something. So completely covered in food they wouldn't even be able to just keep peeling layers off whatever Kurt was wearing to keep going the rest of the day.  
  
"Secret Service time," he declared as he stood and strutted in his most 'don't mess with me' way across the cafeteria. He pulled up a chair and sat backwards in it between Kurt and Tina.   
  
"What are you doing over here?" Kurt asked skeptically.  
  
"Eating lunch with his boyfriend?" Blaine suggested.   
  
"They don't usually do this," Tina explained. "At least, they didn't before now?"  
  
"Mind if I join you guys?" Sam asked, approaching the table with his tray.   
  
"Hey, Sam," Artie replied. "Go ahead, if you want."  
  
"Cool." Sam grinned his dorkiest grin and sat on the other side of Blaine.  
  
Only Finn remained at their old table, staring in confusion at the table where now like half the glee club was sitting - depending whether Kurt was back in and whether Blaine counted even though he hasn't officially auditioned or anything yet. Why was Puck over there? They had a deal - no girlfriends taking over lunch. Kurt counted for that, even though he wasn't, y'know, a girl. And why was Sam over  _there_  instead of over with Quinn if he thought Puck moving meant the rule no longer applied? And what the hell was Puck's thing about the Secret Service?  
  
Then he saw the smackdown-level glare between Puck and Karofsky. Oh.  
  
_Oh._  
  
He wanted to stay the hell out of it. When Karofsky didn't play, they were stuck with Sackachinsky at right guard, and the guy sucked. There was a reason he'd gotten sacked Friday night, and even if they had won that wasn't the point. The dude was a jerk, but he was good for the team and they were in  _playoff games_  now - that had never happened before. Okay, not never, but it had been like twenty years.  
  
But Burt made him promise to look out for Kurt. If he didn't, Burt was gonna kill him. Not really, the guy was scary in a different way than that, but he was already starting to figure out that part of the downside to having a dad was the "I'm so disappointed in you" look.  
  
That and the sibling rivalry part. Because Kurt would  _never_  get that look from his dad.   
  
He knew Burt would be all over them as soon as he got home from the garage, asking if anyone messed with Kurt...and then he'd turn to Finn and ask "What'd you do to keep him safe?" and if he said 'Nothing 'cause there wasn't anything to do' that so wouldn't fly. Especially not if Puck and Sam were over there and he wasn't.  
  
Sighing, and fully aware that whatever social clout he had left at McKinley was gonna be gone by the end of the week - quarterback or not - he trudged over to the table and sat beside Mercedes. They were talking about something with fashion he didn't understand. He started to say none of the guys at the table understood it, but Kurt and Blaine clearly did, and Sam kept adding in comments that were apparently the wrong thing to say but the way they laughed at him wasn't mean or anything.  
  
Puck didn't say a word, just kept staring down Karofsky.   
  
Finn decided staring anywhere except Karofsky was probably safest. Kurt and Blaine were directly across from him, but staring at Kurt was out of the question - he and his stepbrother were cool now, but he knew there was something about staring at another guy that was  _really_  gay (like, 'let's go have sex right now' kind of gay) but he didn't know how that kind of staring was different from regular staring. Kurt would know the difference, and so would Blaine probably, and he was worried about doing the wrong one. Especially at Blaine, because Kurt had gotten over the crush (mostly, he hoped anyway) and was dating Puck so it wasn't too weird, but Blaine could have a crush on him and he didn't know it yet. Blaine was cool and whatever, but he didn't need to go through all that again.  
  
He settled for kind of staring in Sam's general direction.  
  
Karofsky lumbered past, a hard gaze fixing on each guy in turn. "Sup queers?" Blaine stiffened but didn't freeze this time - obviously Kurt's 'lay of the land' speeches had been paying off already. Kurt rolled his eyes with his haughtiest put-upon gaze, Artie and Sam just glowered. Puck's muscular arm twitched slightly, as though he was just barely holding himself back from decking the guy (again). Only Finn visibly reacted at the insult - a bad move, he realized too late. "He finally get you too, Hudson?" Karofsky added with a smirk. "Whadaya know, it really is contagious."  
  
Puck leapt to his feet with such force that it almost knocked his chair over, and Kurt started to tell him to not be an idiot, but Sam beat him to it. "Hold off, dude." He was all for kicking the crap out of Karofsky, but not a) when the guy hadn't technically done anything worthy of that yet this conversation and b) when there was an entire cafeteria of potential witnesses. Puck would end up back in juvie in a heartbeat if Principal Sylvester found out any of what had gone on Friday, if only so she could contradict Beiste.  
  
Karofsky seemed to take stock of the table and realize there were at least two guys willing to kick his ass and only one of him, and instead settled for giving an exaggerated limp-wristed gesture as he strode off, staring at Finn all the way.   
  
"What is his deal?" Finn demanded once Karofsky was out of earshot.  
  
"You're kind of an easy target when you react like that," Artie stated quietly from experience. "If you show fear, he can smell it." When Finn looked like he was about to do a sniff-test on himself to make sure his deodorant was still working, Artie quickly added, "He knows it gets to you. When Puck used to push my wheelchair down the stairs, if I tried to plead for my life or for less humiliation, he liked doing it even more. Once I stopped complaining about it and just went with it, he stopped doing it as much. It wasn't as much fun for him."  
  
Blaine stared behind Kurt's head at Puck. The guy had thrown a kid in a wheelchair down the steps? What kind of twisted jerk did something like that? And what in the hell was Kurt doing dating someone who could be that cruel?  
  
* * * * *  
  
"You survived Day One," Quinn declared with a smile.  
  
Kurt leaned against the piano, looking around at the choir room - it looked exactly the same. Here of all places he felt like should have changed, given everything that had gone on since he'd left. He hated that it still felt like home.  
  
"Only three slushies and two locker-checks, too," he said dryly. "Slow day."  
  
"See? It could be worse," Artie joked.  
  
"It's good to have you back," Sam said.  
  
Kurt shook his head. "I'm not back - I came in to say hi and make sure Blaine found it okay."  
  
Blaine stared at him. "Wait. You're not coming back to your old glee club?"  
  
"No," Kurt stated tightly.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
He couldn't tell Blaine - anyone, really. Not because he didn't want anyone to know. He wanted to shout from the rooftops what a douchebag Mr. Schue had been when it came to him, but he literally couldn't find the words he was so angry.  
  
Luckily he didn't have to. Mr. Schue happened to have fortuitous-enough timing to enter at precisely the right time. "That's why," Kurt stated. He walked over to squeeze Blaine's hand. "You'll be great," he assured him, then turned to give Puck a quick goodbye kiss, deftly slipping out of Puck's grasp when he attempted to keep Kurt from leaving.  
  
"Hey, Kurt, welcome back," Mr. Schue said brightly.  
  
It took everything in Kurt not to scream. While he had a meeting already scheduled with Ms. Sylvester, he didn't need that meeting moved up due to insubordination or whatever Mr. Schue would arbitrarily decide to call it when he went off on the guy for completely ruining his life. "I'm not," Kurt stated coldly and strode out of the room.  
  
"Where's he going?"  
  
"He's back at school, he's not rejoining the club," Puck stated.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Puck rolled his eyes and sunk deeper in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. The guy was really that blind about shit? Mr. Schue wasn't stupid, how could he act so-  
  
...Wait. How did Kurt know about that? He knew he hadn't told Kurt about it, especially not after Kurt found out about Rachel's role in the whole thing and was hurt as hell over it. Someone had told Kurt, hadn't they? But if someone had, if he knew, why hadn't he said anything about it?  
  
"This is Blaine," Puck settled for instead. "He's new - he went to Dalton with Kurt, now he goes here."  
  
Mr. Schue looked surprised. "Really?"  
  
Blaine stood - the product of too many years of overly-formal teachers, and replied, "Yes. After what happened to Kurt internally at Dalton in the wake of the allegations of cheating, I resigned in protest. I'm living win the district now, and as long as I'm at McKinley anyway I thought I might join glee club...assuming you accept new members mid-semester, which I realize I should have thought to ask before-"  
  
"Oh, of course," Mr. Schue replied. "Especially since we're just starting to work on our numbers for Regionals. I saw you at Sectionals. Nice job."  
  
"Thank you," Blaine replied. This whole having an actual director thing was kind of weird, he concluded. It wasn't peer-run, but still no one really seemed to be paying attention.  
  
"Mr. Schue, if I may?" Rachel asked. When no objection came, she launched into her point. "As we've all seen Blaine perform before - in a competition setting, no less - I propose we waive the audition requirement."  
  
"No."  
  
"Mr. Schue, Rachel's right," Mercedes stated, though it pained her to admit it. "Everyone who auditions gets in anyway, and we know the boy can sing."  
  
"Still-"  
  
The entire club was strange, Blaine concluded. The guy was in charge but everyone kind of ran right over him even when he tried to put his foot down. And what was the point of auditioning if everyone gets in? For that matter, what kind of choir can you be if you let everyone in? Some people just weren't legitimately good enough and it would bring down the whole group.   
  
He discreetly sent a text to Kurt:  _You didn't tell me how dysfunctional this group is._  
  
Kurt replied a minute later.  _Maybe if I had, Lynn would have liked me better - there's plenty to gossip about._  
  
"No one told him to prepare anything," Tina pointed out.  
  
"No one told most of us to," Sam replied. "I just kinda showed up with the guys and we jammed."  
  
"Yeah, and then you punked out on the regular audition," Puck pointed out.  
  
"You ever gonna let that one go?"  
  
"Guys." Mr. Schue held up his hand.   
  
_The teacher's almost more like a student. Is it always like this?_  
  
The reply almost made him laugh literally out loud:  _Just wait 'til he starts rapping._  
  
"Blaine - the floor is yours."  
  
Crap. Now he had to think of something off the top of his head to sing. There were almost too many options, but he was used to knowing what sounded best when he was being backed up by twenty incredibly talented guys with amazing arrangements. This was kind of a new arena. Judging from the drums off to one side, the piano, the entire jazz ensemble standing in the corner, he assumed accompaniment wasn't frowned-upon even for auditions, but he didn't have any sheet music. "Is it okay if I play it? I don't have any sheet music on me."  
  
"Oh, they know how to play about anything," Rachel stated brightly.  
  
That seemed unlikely. "It's an arrangement I've been working on," Blaine offered.  
  
"Go ahead - whatever you want," Mr. Schue instructed him.  
  
Blaine nodded and sat down at the piano. He was a little rusty, hardly in top form, but he'd been working on this - okay, more like working on deconstructing the original and moving it into the best key for his range - a decent amount recently on the grand piano in his parents' living room, so he felt reasonably confident. Especially since apparently anyone who auditioned got in, and since they'd watched him at Sectionals which gave them a better idea of his abilities.  
  
He drew in a deep breath and began to [play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2smz_1L2_0).  
  
_We are the crowd  
We're co-coming out  
Got the flash on, it's true  
Need that picture of you  
It's so magical  
We'd be so fantastical_  
  
He hadn't performed on piano in awhile, so he tended to either stare at the keys or close his eyes to listen to his playing a little too much. Even if this wasn't performing the way he was used to, it was still an audition and he should do his best to make it a show. He forced his eyes open and did his best to glance out at the other students whenever he wasn't concentrating on the piano part - which wasn't the most difficult part in the world or anything.  
  
Everyone seemed...surprised by something he was doing. What? He knew Kurt had said something when he first transferred about how nice it was to be able to do "girl songs," but Gaga kind of transcended most of that, didn't she? Like Madonna or other musical icons - not that he was comparing the two, it was still early and he wasn't nearly as obsessed with her as Kurt was, but either way: they couldn't possibly have that look over a boy doing a girl song, right? For one thing, they were used to Kurt whose range tended to kind of make that decision for him even more than his personal penchant for divas.   
  
_Leather and jeans  
Garage glamourous  
Not sure what it means  
But this photo of us it don't have a price  
Ready for those flashing lights_  
  
The blonde girl on the end who wasn't the cheerleader Kurt went to the mall with - he swore he'd learn their names eventually, he was usually pretty good about that, but it had taken him a week to learn all the Warblers and this was still day one, so he didn't feel  _too_  bad yet - was giving him kind of creepy flirty eyes that made him want to blink a little too much...or walk over and make out with the first guy he could find in front of her because he got the feeling just saying "Sorry, I'm not interested" wouldn't be much of a deterrent. Unfortunately, with Kurt out of the room, that left Puck and he wasn't interested in that, either.  
  
But Mercedes - that name he knew - was grinning at him in a really great, supportive kind of way. All the girls seemed pretty into it, actually, except the brunette he knew Kurt was kind of epic frenemies with who just looked like she was analyzing every note and flourish; he could respect that, at least.   
  
The guys, on the other hand...The blond guy whose name was something like Scott or Sam or Steve or Sean had a kind of 'Sounds good, dude' look, but Finn had vaguely uncomfortable look like he'd just realized he was listening to a gay guy, and Puck was glowering with every ounce of scowl he could muster.  
  
He'd gotten used to being around guys. At his old school, especially during middle school, he'd hung out with the girls a little out of necessity but mostly kept to himself, then he got to Dalton and the guys were fantastic. Now he was getting the feeling that Kurt having entirely female friends prior to their first meeting wasn't exactly by choice.   
  
That didn't explain Puck's glare, though.  
  
He focused back on the piano and kept it a little higher and jazzier in the chorus - it was an area of his range he liked but hadn't gotten to use too much when he was trying to blend with twenty other voices. But this glee club was a lot more solo-oriented, so maybe it would work.   
  
_Cause you know that baby I  
I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me  
Papa-paparazzi_  
  
Puck didn't like this guy.  
  
Personally Blaine was fine - whatever. He'd play old-school Nintendo games over new Xbox stuff, which Puck respected, and he was okay as a a roommate, Puck guessed. He wasn't a skeeve-bucket, he wasn't annoying, there wasn't anything concrete he could put his finger on as to why he wanted to locker-toss the dude even though he was totally more chill than that now.  
  
Except the part where Kurt was always hanging out with Blaine now - but that was freaking stupid. It wasn't like he didn't hang out with Finn now that his boy wasn't being a homophobic ass anymore, and he and Sam would grab food after practice sometimes, and Kurt would go to the mall with Quinn or Mercedes all the time and he didn't care.  
  
There was just something different about it. Like, okay, he got that Blaine was new here and didn't know people, so walking around with him and introducing him and soothing him when he was being a total whiny punk about the slushies and stuff, fine. Whatever. Puck could deal with that.  
  
But whenever he made a joke, Kurt just kind of rolled his eyes. When Blaine made a joke, Kurt laughed. Blaine read the same magazines Kurt did, and while Puck had no fucking clue what this song was, from the looks on the girls' faces it was definitely a girl song which meant Kurt would know it.  
  
And the guy hit high notes. Not the same  _way_  Kurt did - a lot rougher, but like he meant to do it that way, unlike Finn who just couldn't sing that shit - but high notes anyway. Meaning there were probably songs the two of them could sing together.  _He_  and Kurt...their duet was cool, but they didn't blend well and had literally no music in common.   
  
This was the problem with being gay, he decided. He wasn't into any of the things the girls were into - except he and Santana were both into Santana - but that was fine. It was  _expected_  - he was a dude and they weren't. He wasn't into whatsherface Aqualeria or whatever like Rachel, because he was a guy. Kurt being into mostly-girly-things was fine, but he was still a guy.   
  
But if Blaine was a guy and into stuff Kurt was into?   
  
_Baby there's no other superstar you know that I'll be  
Papa, paparazzi_  
  
It didn't help that the guy played piano, either. The guitar was way more versatile and way cooler - a lot less geeky - but most of the songs Kurt liked weren't really guitar-ready songs.   
  
_Promise I'll be kind  
But I won't stop until that boy is mine_  
  
He swore Blaine was staring directly at him, like a challenge. Like he was freaking challenging Puckerone for Kurt.   
  
Hell. Fucking. No.  
  
He shifted in his seat, head swaying to each side as he flexed his right bicep, then his left, and raised his eyebrow. No way was he turning down that challenge.  
  
He did his best to ignore the voice in the back of his head that pointed out that, if it did come down to a contest, he'd lose. He never lost a fight, but he lost every single claim on every girl he ever tried for. Not like he even  _wanted_  most of them, but it was about proving a point.   
  
Didn't matter. This dude may have had stuff in common with Kurt, but since when did anyone want that in a relationship anyway? Besides, guy was a total dweeb. He had this in the bag.  
  
He hoped.  
  
_Baby you'll be famous, chase you down until you love me  
Papa-paparazzi_  
  
* * * * *  
  
Even though there was no way he was going back to glee club, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on there in his absence. Especially considering the texts he was getting.  
  
From Tina:  _Hes GOOD_  
  
From Artie:  _brad get a brk yo boi got skillz_  
  
and from Mercedes:  _boy plays gaga better thn gaga. u sur i cant have him?_  
  
A few minutes later, he got one from Blaine.  _I'm in. Plz tell me Puck came up with the name? Shu welcomed me and I thought he was talking about naked hardons._  
  
Kurt almost choked on his tongue trying not to laugh.  
  
"What's so funny, Lady?" Sue looked and sounded the same, but there was something almost more powerful about her as she stood in the doorway of the principal's office to call him in. Like the difference between the crazy wingnut protester and the guy with the same views who actually got elected to Congress - there was something slightly more subdued that came with the authority to actually do whatever the hell you wanted.   
  
"Nothing - sorry, Ms. Sylvester," Kurt replied quickly. "I wanted to speak with you about rejoining the Cheerios."  
  
"Nobody just 'rejoins'. Either you get selected like everyone else at the beginning of the year, or I pick you to advance my own personal agenda," she stated with the refreshing bluntness Kurt had always kind of admired - even if he couldn't look at a pear, or his hips, without cringing thanks to her.  
  
"I'm not rejoining glee club," Kurt stated. If blunt and straightforward was what Ms. Sylvester understood, it might also be what she respected. "Mr. Schuester is the reason I lost my scholarship, thanks to his meddling and unfounded accusations of cheating, so I need something I can do here that will simultaneously challenge me and improve my social standing. I know that, with football season winding down, Cheerios will be shifting their attention to competition routines, and I believe that I could once again help lead the team to victory."  
  
She stared at him across the desk for what seemed like several long minutes, thinking. "Fine," she said at long last, tossing her glasses onto the desktop absently. "Report to practice tomorrow."  
  
He smiled for the first time all day - or what felt like it, at least. "I will. Thank you." He wasn't sure why it had been this easy. Nothing with Ms. Sylvester was  _ever_  that easy. He wasn't going to challenge her, though, or give her reason to go back on her acceptance. Reaching down, he snagged his bag and stood.  
  
"Hang on, Lady." She called for Becky, who hurried in.  
  
"Yes, Coach?"  
  
"Get Madonna here one of the new uniforms, have it here by tomorrow."  
  
"Got it, Coach."  
  
"Anyone giving you a hard time lately?" she asked Becky, but with a pointed look at Kurt.  
  
"No, Coach. I'd cut them."  
  
"Good," she stated evenly.   
  
He knew that thinking Ms. Sylvester was letting him back on the squad to protect him was attributing far too altruistic a motive to her. Probably, at least. There was a decent chance that she was doing this to use him in a pawn against Mr. Schue - a role he was happy to play these days. Though she had been his advocate in the past.  
  
Right now he wasn't going to question it. He needed all the help he could get, especially if he wanted to also keep Blaine safe by proxy.   



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that the series diverged from canon to a large extent at 2x06. So most of Never Been Kissed either didn't happen or didn't happen in the same way as on the show. And obviously everything afterward, except for the songs chosen, were different.

If anyone asked, it was definitely not cuddling.  
  
Unless that someone was Blaine. In that case, of course it was cuddling - and they did it all the damn time. If Blaine asked, he was the fucking cuddle-master.  
  
Assuming Kurt wanted to call any of this cuddling, that is. Puck couldn't guarantee that, since Kurt still wasn't as ultra-touchy-feely as some people. Not that he could actually name any of the people he was comparing Kurt to - Quinn got kind of hand-holdy with Sam at school but nothing beyond that, at least not that Puck had ever experienced; Santana was even more anti-cuddling than he was. But that wasn't the point.  
  
The three of them sat on the living room couch - Puck on the far right, legs spread; Kurt beside him, his legs kind of draped over Puck's left thigh in a position that allowed him to occasionally slide forward a little to be in great makeout position on Puck's lap (not that Puck was taking advantage of that at all); then Blaine on the left.   
  
It would be a great afternoon if Puck could've just used photoshop to cut out the left part of the picture. And if he could commandeer the remote, because Blaine and Kurt had kind of taken it over and kept watching stupid interior decorating shows and special Christmas editions. Who gave a rat's ass what the White House Christmas Tree looked like or how it was put together?  
  
Apparently the two of them did.   
  
If he still called people or things gay, he would totally be saying it to like everything they were doing today...but Kurt hated when he did that - okay, fair enough. But now it would be true - both of them were gay. And watching HGTV this long was  _definitely_  gay. Really.  
  
"I've never been to New York at Christmas," Blaine lamented as the Macys window special started.  
  
"I've never been to New York at all," Kurt replied.  
  
"That settles it - next year for winter break, we're going. You, me, and the Big Apple," Blaine stated.   
  
"Right," Kurt said skeptically.  
  
"Seriously. That week between Christmas and New Years - my sister'd go with us, a couple of her friends from Princeton live up there, so we could get a hotel. But we'd have to plan early so we can get tickets to Wicked."  
  
Kurt's eyes lit up at that. "You're serious?"  
  
"Why wouldn't I be?" Blaine asked. "You'd love it there."  
  
"Could love it there sooner if we go to Nationals," Puck stated. Kurt shot him a 'yeah, right' look and turned back to excitedly chattering with Blaine - something about a village and stone walls and Times Square and Project Runway. Puck took advantage of the two of them being distracted to snatch the remote away and change the channel.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"I can't watch another thing where someone does something with freaking glitter," Puck stated. Not that any other station had much better. "Why is it all Christmas, anyway?"  
  
"Um, because it's Christmas time?" Blaine suggested.  
  
"Eight days of Chanukkah, not a single day of specials. One day of Christmas, three freaking weeks of specials. How is that fair?"  
  
"Are there even Chanukkah movies?" Kurt pointed out, then added quickly, "That don't involve Adam Sandler?"  
  
"Only because so many Jews sell out about Christmas. Like every Christmas song ever is written by my people, but no one can come up with a Chanukkah carol?" Puck snorted. "Rudolph? I'll Be Home for Christmas? Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree? That one about chestnuts on an open fire? Freaking White Christmas-"  
  
"I love that one," Kurt stated.  
  
"Me too," Blaine confirmed.  
  
"My favourite Christmas movie of all time, too."  
  
"Really? You like it more than Holiday Inn?"  
  
"I like Holiday Inn, but it's not specifically a Christmas movie to me. Besides, I love Rosemary Clooney in that."  
  
"But Holiday Inn has Fred Astaire," Blaine pointed out.  
  
"And the blackface number," Kurt replied dryly.  
  
"...Okay, yes. But there's a reason it's been cut out of every broadcast except the ones on TCM since about 1980."  
  
Puck felt like he should interject but he had honestly no clue what the fuck the other two were talking about. He found that happening a lot - stuff with Dalton it made sense, y'know, like they were inside jokes the way he and Sam or he and Finn had. And he was used to not understanding half of what Mercedes and Kurt were saying when they were talking. Difference was, he wasn't usually sitting there and trying to pay attention when they were in one of their things...but if  _Blaine_  got whatever the conversation this was?  
  
"So what's yours?" he heard Kurt ask.  
  
"My what?"  
  
"Favourite Christmas movie?"  
  
"Breakfast with Scot." When Kurt responded with only a blank look, Blaine added, "You've never seen it?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh, you have to - you'd love it. Hang on; I have it upstairs." He shoved himself off the couch and quickly ascended the steps.  
  
Puck pulled Kurt forward into his lap and gave him a hard, almost demanding kiss. Kurt's eyes widened for a moment in surprise before closing as he murmured approvingly against Puck's lips. "What was that for?"  
  
Puck raised an indignant eyebrow. "You complaining?"  
  
"No," Kurt replied simply. "Just wondering."  
  
Puck wrapped his hand around the nape of Kurt's neck and pulled him in for another kiss. Not that Kurt would ever turn this down or anything, but something was up. Almost like Puck was...  
  
No. Puck was not jealous of Blaine. That wouldn't make any sense. For one thing, he and Blaine weren't like that.  
  
Not like he would be opposed to it if circumstances were different. Blaine was sweet and awesome and loyal and all kinds of things Kurt had always said he would want in a potential boyfriend...but he  _had_  a boyfriend, a boyfriend he loved even if they didn't go around saying it every five seconds. He wasn't looking to trade Puck in for a gayer model or anything, and now that Puck wasn't sleeping with every woman in town...He didn't get why Puck seemed to think he had anything to worry about.  
  
Meaning either Puck was being irrational about the whole thing, or Kurt was imagining it all. That was more likely - after all, he'd been the one trying to get Puck to stop making out when it was just the two of them and Blaine in a room because it was kind of rude (and he'd been that third wheel way too often in the past and knew how much it sucked). This wasn't possessiveness, it was Puck not being used to actually having to watch tv when Kurt came over to "watch tv." Normally by now they'd be naked, and Puck was having issues adjusting to that part.  
  
That made far more sense.  
  
Blaine returned quickly with a DVD and put it in the player as Kurt shifted to rest his head against Puck's shoulder; he waited for Puck to tell him to move because this was far too close to snuggling for comfort, but the admonishment never came.   
  
The newly-orphaned nine-year-old would have hit a little too close to home for Kurt even had the young protagonist not been beyond effeminate. The looks that young Scot-with-one-T got everywhere he went...he remembered those looks. Hell, he still got those looks, but a little more knowing now that he was a teenager.  
  
In an effort not to think so much - he was  _not_  going to start crying over some movie, even if he was notorious for waterworks - he found himself watching Blaine instead of the movie. Blaine looked like he wanted to adopt Scot himself, like he wanted to give the boy a hug and make him watch It Gets Better videos for a few hours. Like he thought the swishy little redhead was the world's cutest, most lovable, most perfect kid.  
  
Kurt wondered if Blaine had been more like that as a kid than one would have suspected. After all, Blaine was more noticeably gay where there were strict codes of masculine conduct - basically anywhere that wasn't Dalton. And he knew Blaine had gotten harassed at his old school quite a bit, and that was once he'd reached an age where he was old enough to understand how to modulate his behaviour a little if he had to. Maybe Blaine had been closer to Scot than...not, at that age. He  _did_  seem to get not only a lot of what Kurt had gone through - or, at least, he thought he understood, though attending McKinley seemed to be proving to both of them that Blaine hadn't the foggiest idea just how bad Kurt had it before Dalton - but a lot of the things Kurt was into.   
  
Kurt found himself imagining little Blaine, with his unruly dark curls, trying on pea coats and marveling at how they draped. Or singing Chritsmas carols year-round - though certainly more on-key. Not as finicky as he himself had been as a child, but just enough...he smiled at the thought.  
  
Puck, on the other hand.  
  
"I would've totally kicked that kid's ass."  
  
Kurt's eyes narrowed slightly. "Not just would have - you did," he stated dryly, his tone icy and distant. "I have the scars to prove it."  
  
There was a flicker of guilt in Puck's eyes, but not enough to warrant an actual apology apparently. "C'mon, I didn't do anything bad enough for scars."  
  
Kurt rolled up his sleeve to the elbow and looked hard at his forearm for a minute before pointing out a faint line that was now mostly-obscured by hair. "There."  
  
"What's it from?"  
  
"Dumpster."  
  
"Caught on the edge or something?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Blaine stared at them, more than a little confused. The idea of Kurt dating the bad boy - of Kurt  _wanting_  the bad boy - was strange enough to him. But the knowledge that Kurt was dating a guy who had actively tormented him in the past?   
  
He couldn't fathom it. He couldn't even begin to imagine dating one of the boys who picked on him at his old school. Especially considering that, even as Puck listened to Kurt coldly retell exactly what caused the physical scars, the mohawked guy didn't seem to be even remotely apologetic. Not in the least.  
  
Why the hell was Kurt  _with_  this guy?  
  
He already hadn't been able to understand it - what precisely did Kurt talk about with the guy who thought Vogue was a French-Canadian hockey player or something, who didn't know Gaga or Madonna or Britney or Celine, who didn't understand the desire to ever leave Ohio, who thought Sunset Boulevard was noteworthy only as the site of the Whiskey and the birth of 80s metal. But the more he heard about who Puck had been, the less he understood it.   
  
Rather, the less he understood it now that Kurt knew other guys who were gay. Before, when Puck was his only option, Blaine could understand Kurt wanting to be with him - even a lousy guy was better than no guy sometimes, especially because he got the feeling Kurt had always been lonelier than anyone realized. But he could name a good dozen gay guys at Dalton, at least a few of whom were of a similar level of masculinity as Puck, all of whom could sing if that was the draw, a few of whom were also athletes if that was what Kurt found attractive (though he seriously doubted it, based on Kurt's reluctance to go to the playoff game)...Any number of guys would be better for Kurt.  
  
Hell,  _he_  would be better for Kurt.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Careening into a locker was starting to feel like a normal way to begin a day again.  
  
"Sup, Hummel?" He wasn't sure what it was about the way Karofsky said his name that managed to make it sound so much like 'homo' while still definitely retaining the -el ending. Kurt straightened up, doing his best not to let the throbbing, stinging pain in his shoulder or the raw scraped feeling in his palm show on his face. He fixed Karofsky with a cold glare. "Suck any good cocks lately?"  
  
"Why?" Kurt threw back. "You interested? Though you did say 'good', which I suppose would exclude you."  
  
Apparently hanging out with Puck had made his comebacks a little less erudite and a lot quicker to come. Karofsky stalked towards him, fists clenched. "What was that?"  
  
Kurt didn't flinch. "Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I don't have standards."   
  
The sharp backwards shove against the cool metal was simultaneously expected and jarring, but he kept his composure. "You trying to mess with me, queer?"  
  
"Impressive insult, very creative - can you spell it?" Kurt retorted. "Here's a hint: it doesn't start with a k."  
  
Karofsky's eyes narrowed further, jaw set, as he let out a huff of a breath; Kurt could feel it on his face and it made him vaguely nauseous. He smacked the locker a few inches from Kurt's left cheek, and Kurt's eyes inadvertently squeezed shut as he waited for the next motion to hit his face, but instead Karofsky stormed off down the hall. Kurt watched, wide-eyed, as the lumbering senior used a flick of his upper arm to shove Finn into the nearest row of lockers.  
  
"What the hell, dude?" Finn called angrily, but Karofsky kept walking.  
  
Kurt waited for Finn's accusations, his demands that Kurt stop being so out there, stop making out with Puck in the hallways, stop doing anything that would bring unwanted attention down on Finn. Instead he got a kind of withering look, then Finn started towards his own class. He supposed it was better than he had a right to ask for, all things considered.  
  
"Kurt? Are you okay?"  
  
If he was tense before, the sound of Mr. Schue's voice made his shoulders stiffen further. "I'm fine," he replied coldly, but there was a bit of residual quiver in his voice. Even though he was used to all of this, even though he was starting to come to terms with the idea of reentering a world where all of this was commonplace and considered perfectly socially acceptable, the linebacker who outweighed him by at least 100 pounds shoving him around still caused a flutter of anxiety, a tiny jolt of adrenaline.   
  
Mr. Schue looked thoughtful for a moment, then clapped his hand on Kurt's shoulder. "I've been wanting to talk to you anyway - come with me for a minute?" he requested.  
  
"I have class-"  
  
"Kurt." The voice had taken on a stern quality that Kurt realized he should definitely be used to by now; it was definitely one he got more than the others in glee club. After all, he was the only member of New Directions ever to be sent to the principal's office at Mr. Schuester's request, right? His eyebrows flicked upwards skeptically for a moment, but he allowed himself to be led to the small office off the choir room. "Have a seat - do you want some water or something?" Mr. Schue asked cordially enough as he took a swig of what Kurt assumed was probably lukewarm coffee.   
  
"No. Thank you."  
  
Mr. Schue nodded and settled into his chair behind the desk. "How's your first week back going?" he asked.  
  
Kurt wanted to be angry with him - he was angry with him. But Mr. Schuester's tone was so genuine that Kurt honestly wondered just how naive the teacher really was. Of course, if he was so blind about things, did that actually make it any better? Or did it make his behaviour even less excusable, since the adult in this situation should at the very least know better than a sixteen-year-old?  
  
If  _Finn_  could freaking understand all of this...  
  
"Lovely," Kurt replied dryly with a judgmental eyebrow-quirk.  
  
"We've missed you in practice." When Kurt's look was cold and noncommittal, Mr. Schue added, "I really think that, with everything that's been going on here at school since you came back, you really should be back in glee club - so there can be one place you're-"  
  
Kurt just knew the next word out of his mouth was going to be something patronizing and woefully inaccurate - "safe" or "able to express yourself" or "appreciated." "Mr. Schue, if I may?" The words felt foreign on his tongue, something he hadn't said in awhile and thought he would never say again, like the one time he tried to call Carole 'mom' and hadn't been able to without feeling like he was choking on his own tongue. Only this was much more raw than a decade-old wound. His lips twisted slightly into a sardonic smirk even though this wasn't in the least bit funny. "There is no way I'm coming back. "  
  
"I know things are difficult for you here, Kurt. You look really down, like the bullying has started to get to you. I'm sure it's an...adjustment, coming back to McKinley. Which is why now, of all times, you should be with your friends, the people who care about you." The sincere look in his eyes made Kurt want to scream.   
  
"You mean the people who resented me for leaving in the first place and have consistently ignored the majority of what I went through at this school as long as I kept up a brave front?" he replied sarcastically.   
  
Mr. Schue looked confused, like he had no idea what to make of that. "I've been thinking about the setlist for Regionals already, and I have a couple ideas I wanted to run by you for solos. For you, I mean," he added, to make sure he was clear. "Going up against Vocal Adrenaline, we need something special - something outside the box, something unexpected, something that makes people sit up and take notice, a wow-factor. When people see you, they don't expect that voice to come out of your mouth, which is why I was thinking-"  
  
Kurt's fingers curled tensely around the arm of the chair. His voice wasn't good enough on its own merits; he was a sideshow to them. He was a circus attraction, something to be trotted out in front of the crowd to get gasps of surprise. He wasn't getting offered his first ever competition solo on the merits of his talent, or even based on how hard he worked. It wasn't because he would sound fantastic at a particular song, or because they knew he had the ability to bring down a house with his incredible range...but because his range was unusual and would get attention.   
  
He was a gimmick. That's all he was to the man who had ruined his one and only shot at true happiness.  
  
"I don't know, I wouldn't want to be accused by our opponents of cheating," Kurt stated with such a clipped tone that the vowels were almost nonexistent; still, he was understood. "After all, I've just transferred in from your former competitors, and considering how rightfully-angry they are with you for getting their stars kicked off the team and having to give up their condos and everything, I'm sure they'd be out for retribution. God knows I would be," he added, eyes narrow.  
  
"It's not cheating if you legitimately should be at this school, Kurt-"  
  
"You mean unlike Dalton?" he demanded. He hadn't intended to be that blatant about it all, he planned to have a little more finesse, to draw out the bitter and sarcastic tone for longer, but he couldn't help it. He was too angry to stay calm. "Where I competed for and was awarded a scholarship based on my talent and vocal ability with absolutely no gimmicks or preparation?"  
  
Mr. Schue sighed. "I understand that you're frustrated. But I was never trying to say that  _you_  had done anything wrong-"  
  
"Only that I had been manipulated," he replied dryly.  
  
"Considering the circumstnaces-"  
  
"What circumstances?" Kurt demanded.  
  
"You transferred there suddenly, with no warning, only weeks before competition."  
  
"More than a month before competition," Kurt corrected.  
  
"And the reason you gave was bullying, but you've had that problem for at least as long as I've-"  
  
Kurt stared at him, dumbstruck. There was no way he was understanding that correctly, right? There was just no way that Mr. Schuester could possibly be telling him that he should have stayed at McKinley because getting his ass kicked had never been a big deal before and therefore shouldn't be a big deal now, could he? "This is exactly why I left," he stated quietly. He wanted to throw things, or go take up residence in his basement and never leave, or go find Puck and screw him in the nearest closet so he wouldn't feel like this anymore. Everything Blaine had said during their first coffee together came back to him - about how the teachers were sympathetic he was going through hell but didn't get it. Mr. Schue wasn't even sympathetic. Mr. Schue didn't  _care_. He pretended to, he acted like he was looking out for Kurt's wellbeing by making sure no one at the amazingly-accepting high-end prep school was taking advantage of him by offering him an incredible education in a safe atmosphere. But he was as self-interested as anyone.  
  
Of all the moments Kurt had missed Dalton in the previous week, this was the most intense.  
  
"I left for my own safety after I was suspended for defending myself - and in that meeting, I might add, you not once stood up for me. You told my father patronizingly that you thought I might be 'going through something' at school. You're right - I was going through something. I was getting pig entrails tied to my locker and having people tell me I was contagious, and those were the less-hostile bullies. You, like every other teacher at this school, let every bit of homophobia slide despite jumping to the aid of everyone else who might need defending. If you heard someone harassing Artie, you would step in and discipline the other student. Let alone if you heard someone calling Mercedes the n-word? Where were you every time someone called me a faggot?" he demanded. "Instead, you made it my problem. So I went somewhere I could be safe and  _happy_ , which I was - until you dragged me back here. It is  _your fault_  I'm here," he added unequivocally. "Every day that I get harassed, it's because of you. Every time I walk down the hall and get called a slur, it's because of what you did. And if I were the kind of person who was going to kill myself, that would be on you, too," he added.  
  
Not like he hadn't considered it before. But his father needed him too much, and Blaine now, and Puck would be a mess, and...and so he had reasons not to. But that didn't mean he was less-than-miserable.  
  
Under other circumstances, he might have taken some pleasure in the stricken look on Mr. Schue's face, but that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted his life back. He wanted to be understood. He wanted things to go back to the way they had been, where teachers had actually stood up for any of the things they preached.   
  
"Wild horses could not drag me back to glee club," he stated coldly as he stood. "So you can stop dangling solos in front of me. You gave me exactly one chance, and because of the ignoramuses in this town I had to throw the competition. At Dalton, that never would have happened; that alone should be reason enough to explain why I was happy there, even though you obviously never considered that when you turned me in for potentially cheating my way into happiness. I have no interest in being in that kind of toxic environment." He swished his long jacket back as he made his grand exit from the room and managed to get all the way to his classroom (and mumble his apology for being late) before he started shaking from the magnitude of what he'd said.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Seeing Blaine get tripped wasn't the first thing, it was more like the final straw.  
  
Not like he liked Blaine. Not like he really cared what happened to the guy...except Kurt liked the guy, and he kind of cared if Kurt was pissed at him. Blaine was in glee club now, which meant he was part of the team and no one messed with Puck's team.  
  
Besides. Finn said Karofsky was giving him a hard time earlier, and when he saw Kurt after lunch he'd looked totally freaked, like serious shit had gone down, but he wouldn't say what it was. It didn't take a genius to know Karofsky had been involved.  
  
Blaine was already starting to get better at being in a public school, he'd stopped trying not make big speeches about nonviolent conflict resolution crap after the third day, and he wasn't looking all shellshocked anymore. That wasn't the point.   
  
"What the hell, dude?" Puck demanded of Karofsky. Blaine was scrambling to his feet and adjusting his hair, so the dude was unharmed, but that wasn't the fucking point.  
  
Karofsky snorted. "You talking to me?"  
  
"What do you think?" Puck replied flippantly, stepping closer. Karofsky was chunkier but not taller and definitely not more muscular than he was; assuming he played his positions right, he'd totally win at a rematch - not like he'd lost the first round, it ended in a draw. Instead Karofsky rolled his eyes and walked off down the hall.  
  
Puck stalked after him, more than a little pissed. Who did Karofsky think he was, anyway, trying to usurp his status as top-ass-kicker? And when would the dumb-fuck get the idea that certain kids were off-limits? Anyone protected by El Puckerone you didn't fucking mess with, and you sure as hell didn't try to push Puckasawrus. "Hey, assface!" he called after him. Karofsky turned the corner and disappeared into the locker room, and Puck followed him. "What the fuck's your problem?"  
  
"Stay away from me, Puckerman - no one's in here, I don't wanna know what you might do to me now that you've gone full-on fag."  
  
Puck snorted. "Like I'd ever want you."  
  
Karofsky's face hardened and he glowered at Puck as he opened his locker. "That right?" he asked tightly.  
  
"Stay the fuck away from my boy Kurt. And Finn. And that Blaine kid."  
  
"Or what?" Karofsky replied with all the creativity of a less-than-cool seven-year-old. Puck just barely managed to not roll his eyes. "You think I'm scared of you?"  
  
Puck couldn't help but remember that, a few nights ago, it had certainly looked that way. "You are. You should be. You think you're so cool 'cause you can toss around a guy smaller than you, call him slurs everyone knows are true? That's amateur. You're not a real badass - a  _real_  badass owns that shit."  
  
"Don't push me," Karofsky ground out shortly, hands balling into fists.  
  
"What, you wanna hit me?" Puck asked. "You want a rematch? I'll kick your ass again, whatevs." He knew it was a risk, if only because with more than just Beiste around this time of day, there was a bigger chance he'd get caught by another teacher who would turn him in and he'd be exactly where he'd feared he might be when the first fight happened. But what good was there in being a badass - let alone the number one badass - if you couldn't defend the people on your team? Besides, if Kurt concluded that he'd let Karofsky kick Blaine's ass without even trying to step in, Kurt would kill him whether it was true or not. He could totally beat Karofsky in a straight-up one-on-one fair fight, if only because Karofsky was slow and kind of a fucking moron.  
  
The hands on either side of his jaw took him by surprise, but they were nothing compared to the crash of lips onto his own. The taste of skunky cheap beer and cafeteria mac-and-cheese was overpowering and fucking gross, and the lips were rough and cracked, especially as Karofsky tried to force his tongue into Puck's mouth.  
  
The quiet whimpery moan Karofsky let out was what really set him off. He pressed his hands against Karofsky's shoulders and shoved him back into the lockers as hard as he could. When Karofsky stared at him, eyes wide, Puck almost felt halfway sorry for him for a second - the guy looked so bewildered, so confused, and if Puck didn't know better he would swear from the look on the guy's face that that  _he_  had been the one to start the kiss first. But no way would he ever be  _that_  fucking desperate.  
  
Karofsky blinked, licked his lips in an awkward, stunned swipe, then leaned back in for a second try. Puck swiftly slammed him back again. "Stay the fuck away from me," he declared his most menacing growl before storming out of the locker room. He flinched at the sound of a fist slamming metal behind him, but he kept walking and tried desperately to convince himself none of it had actually happened.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Puck got home, the urge to vomit had mostly subsided, but the lingering, gnawing feeling of disgust remained. The memory of Karofsky's hands on his jaw felt like it was burning his skin, making it crawl. Let alone the kind of dull tingling in his lips when he thought about it...  
  
Lucky for him, the taste of cherry-cola lipgloss could cover almost anything.  
  
He wanted the thing that was the least like that disgusting kiss as he could find. Acts of violence were out - for one thing, Kurt would be pissed at him; for another, it would just remind him of who he'd really like to be kicking the crap out of, instead. Getting half-smashed on pity-beer from 7-11 was vaguely appealing but unlikely at 3 in the afternoon. Pot cupcakes weren't really  _his_  thing, they were something he gave others. Which left sex as the lone coping mechanism available to him.  
  
Kurt was awesome and all - he got all hot over the most random things and sucked like a fucking Dyson and looked unfreakingreal when he came. But he was still a guy. Not that Puck was complaining about that part; he stopped thinking it was weird or a problem a long time ago. Long before Kurt had, actually. And that wasn't why what happened had grossed him out - not because Karofsky was a dude, because Karofsky was fucking  _Karofsky_. The idea of putting him and Kurt even in the same category was sacrilege or something, and it made him kind of shudder.  
  
But Kurt still wasn't far away enough from what happened. Especially not since Puck had only followed Karofsky because he was trying to tell the guy to back off Kurt and Blaine and Finn and whatever. If Karofsky picked on anyone hardcore, it was Kurt.   
  
He wondered suddenly if that was why Karofsky tormented Kurt so freaking much. Maybe he  _liked_  Kurt.  
  
That was an image he needed to get out of his goddamned head pronto. Freaking gross.  
  
So that settled it. Someone to make out with who was not Kurt, just to get the taste of Karofsky out of his mouth in a way that brushing his teeth four times hadn't been able to do.  
  
He had a feeling that, when Santana offered to bring Brittany, it was meant to be more of a threat somehow, a sort of "Sure, I'll come over and not wear any underwear, but I'm not just doing it for you and you're not getting all my attention, so don't go thinking you're special or anything." Little did she realize that was all the better for his purposes.  
  
For any purposes, really. Who would ever turn down a side of girl-on-girl?  
  
...Okay, what person who was into girls in the first place would turn down two of them? he edited.  
  
But if his goal was to get the memory of a chunky jock mauling him with cracked lips erased from his consciousness, what better way than two hot chicks writhing on top of him while they made out with each other?  
  
Santana's first words when she arrived were, "I don't do fours. Or anything else with two guys." She glanced through the living room skeptically, like she expected Kurt to pop out from behind the couch.  
  
"I do," Brittany replied vacantly. "But it's gotta be for twice as long so it still counts. That new boy lives here, right?"  
  
"Huh?" Oh - yeah," he replied, ignoring why she might be asking as he led the two of them up to his room.  
  
Santana surveyed the familiar bedroom, tilting her head at the air mattress and laptop set up in the corner. "He doesn't share your bed?"  
  
"That's Blaine's, not Kurt's," Puck snorted.  
  
"Still. I thought since you'd gone full-on gay now-"  
  
That was it. Slushies to the face he could deal with; spending the day worrying about Kurt getting slammed into lockers too hard and seeing bruises spread across that pale skin of his hurt, but he could handle it; but what she said - and the  _way_  she said it...like no one would understand why what Karofsky had done wasn't cool, why it made him feel queasy and kind of disgusted and disgusting all at the same time, because hey - he liked kissing dudes now, didn't he? So what was the problem?   
  
He wrapped his arm roughly around her waist and pulled her towards him, crashing his lips against her in what was admittedly not his finest kiss ever but at a certain point he'd gotten too desperate to care. Her lips were soft and so were her hands, and she smelled like high-end perfume instead of sweat socks.   
  
"Wow," she smirked as she stepped back. "You really do want it bad today." She reached up to untie her ponytail - he was a sucker for her hair and she knew it, then pulled Brittany gently towards her. With a sideways glance at Puck, like she was trying to make sure he was watching and liked what he saw, she leaned in for a hot kiss with her best friend.  
  
Yes, Puck concluded. This was the opposite of what he was trying to forget about.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"It wasn't nearly as disgusting as I was expecting," Kurt declared as Blaine unlocked the Puckermans' front door.  
  
"Which? The violence?"  
  
"No - the lesbian sex." He carefully unwound his heavy cableknit scarf and hung it on the hook with his jacket. "I could almost understand where a person would find that hot. In theory."  
  
"It helps that it was Natalie Portman," Blaine nodded. "The girl is gorgeous. Even if I'll always think of her marrying a nine-year-old boy."  
  
Kurt wasn't sure when that had happened but he wasn't going to ask for further details. He retrieved a McQueen skull scarf from the pocket of his coat and carefully wound it around his neck. "Yes?" he asked as he saw Blaine staring.  
  
"You took off a scarf."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And put on another-"  
  
"It's cold enough out to warrant a thick scarf, but there's no way I would wear that one indoors," he stated, and Blaine looked like he was trying not to laugh but found it cute all at the same time, which wasn't a look Kurt was used to. He was just used to the first part. Or Carole, who looked at him like he was weird but it made him charming. With a flick of his eyebrows, he returned to the subject at hand. "And it was so well-directed."  
  
"The way they managed to film the dancing..."  
  
"I'll be right back - I want to go say hi to Puck," Kurt said as he started up the stairs.  
  
"Grab my DVDs while you're up there? I have this sudden desire to watch A Chorus Line-"  
  
"Where they're talking about The Red Shoes and singing 'At the Ballet'? Oh, I know, me too," Kurt grinned.  
  
"And we can make up our own lyrics - you know, 'Everyone was murderous at the balleeeeeet...'" Blaine sang with a grin that grew wider when Kurt laughed. He didn't get to see Kurt seeming actually  _happy_  very often since they left Dalton (some more voluntarily than others), and he knew Kurt tended to default to bone-achingly  _sad_ , so as much as he could he was making it his job to try to keep Kurt looking and sounding as much like he had when he was happy as possible. Given the circumstances it wouldn't be easy, but that was part of why he'd come, wasn't it? To protect him, keep him safe, and try to keep him from being as miserable as he had been before.   
  
Kurt ascended the stairs quickly, already humming 'At the Ballet' softly with a smile on his face. That faded when he opened the door.  
  
Just because he'd understood why two girls going at it could be theoretically kind of maybe sort of attractive when directed by Darren Aronofsky did  _not_  mean he wanted to witness it firsthand. And definitely not in the bed with his fucking boyfriend.  
  
Santana was lying on her back, Brittany basically sitting on her face, and those were images Kurt could have lived very happily without for his entire life. But where his eyes stopped was on Puck - thrusting in and out of Santana, one hand grasping her hip tightly while the other moved up to play with her fake boobs. He was making this kind of desperate groaning noise that Kurt knew from experience either meant he was like five seconds away from coming or was so deeply in need of  _something_  that he couldn't even pretend to disguise it.  
  
It was Brittany who noticed him first. "Hey, Kurt - come here. My mouth's totally free, and if you stand here then you can make out with Puck while-"  
  
He tried to focus on the fact that somehow Brittany, who had to cheat off special ed kids in math class, had a natural inclination towards sexual geometry. Or on the uneven section in the ceiling that he'd never seen from this angle before. Or on wondering where the DVD wallet was so he could go find it and get the hell out of here and try to erase the entire scene from his memory.  
  
What a fucking idiot he'd been.  
  
He didn't know why he'd thought this wasn't happening anymore. Or why he'd thought that, even if it wasn't actively happening often anymore, that it would never happen again. After all, Puck was still Puck, and they had never actually closed the relationship - the rules still stood as originally conceived.  
  
Rather, the rule - singular - still stood as written: Puckzilla could do whoever Puckzilla wanted. At any time. For any reason. Without prior approval, consent, or permission being granted by anyone.  
  
He knew that was what he'd agreed to, and he knew that demanding it be changed probably wasn't going to go over very well.   
  
Mostly he just felt like a fool.  
  
Somewhere along the course of their relationship, sometime after the Meatloaf song but before he'd gotten kicked out of Dalton...probably sometime after Sectionals with Santana's solo and the accompanying dirty-dancing all its own, he'd noticed Puck didn't really have times he was unreachable for no discernible reason. Unlike before, when there would be afternoons he would answer cryptically - or not answer at all - instead of coming over...they'd been spending every afternoon either together or texting, or occasionally apart but with a good and known reason (i.e. football was a double-practice, or Sue Sylvester was still fucking crazy). He'd just kind of assumed nothing was going on. That Puck was settling down a little, realizing that monogamy didn't have to mean montony and that it wasn't nearly so bad if someone wasn't trying to actively tie you down.  
  
He'd imagined the entire thing.  
  
His self-esteem wasn't quite chronically low enough to make hi think this was all his fault, mostly because he hadn't freaking  _done_  anything lately...but he had been naive enough to think that Puckasawrus was settling down for him, and he had every right to feel like an idiot for that one.  
  
He turned and walked out. He had considered still grabbing the DVDs, even though he didn't want to be in that room any longer than absolutely necessary...but he liked A Chorus Line, and he wanted to be able to watch it again in the future without thinking about  _this_.  
  
"Kurt!" He didn't stop when he heard Puck's voice on the stairs behind him. He heard footsteps quicken and Puck's hand caught his arm as they reached the landing. "I didn't-...I-"  
  
"I'm not mad at you," Kurt stated quietly, honestly. "Puckzilla was just doing what Puckzilla does."  
  
The disappointment in his voice was what made Puck kind of ache - sure, he was used to people sounding disappointed in him, pretty much every adult he'd ever known had done that, but this was different. Usually disappointed didn't sound this much like the person might burst into tears but was too proud to do it until they got to their car.  
  
It was enough to make him want to explain and justify his actions for once.  
  
"I had the world's worst afternoon," he stated. The 'really?' look he got from Kurt, complete with a condescending raise of the eyebrow and a skeptical expression, pissed him off - he got why, but how was he supposed to fucking explain himself if Kurt was going to just keep looking at him like that. "It's true, dude. I was trying to get Karofsky to back the fuck off of you guys - you and Blaine and Finn - and then out of nowhere he grabs me, right? And I think he's gonna punch me or something, but instead he-"  
  
He couldn't get the words out. They were still too fucking disgusting.  
  
"He what? Threatened you instead?" Kurt asked. The hard edge was still there, but it was softening - like he wanted to be pissed but was too busy being worried about what Karofsky might have done.  
  
"Let's just say he's compensating for something," Puck said, then continued down the stairs towards the living room.  
  
"For...what, precisely?" Kurt asked, following him. "Because if you mean compensating like  _that_ , he's small but not  _that_  small-"  
  
"Not like that," Puck replied, though somewhere in the back of his mind he felt almost proud that he'd gotten Kurt's mind dirtier than he realized. "Like...there's a reason he picks on anyone he thinks is gay."  
  
Kurt blinked. "I don't get what you're trying to say, but if this is your way of trying to get out of me being pissed about-"  
  
"No!" Puck replied exasperatedly. "He's-"  
  
"...closeted," Blaine concluded quietly, having heard just the tail end of the conversation. He had a musing expression that made Puck kind of want to roll his eyes. "Or at least confused."  
  
Kurt stared at him, eyes wide. "Really."  
  
"Yeah," Puck stated shortly.  
  
"That would explain...quite a bit, actually. He's confused, he's scared, he thinks being gay is wrong but he knows he has feelings for guys..."  
  
"So he makes the lives of anyone who isn't scared of being gay, into a living hell because then we have to be scared of him" Kurt concluded bitterly.  
  
"He doesn't know what else to do. You remember how scary it was, coming out-"  
  
"No," Kurt stated flatly. When they both stared at him, he explained, "I've known who I was since I was five - which, coincidentally, is when the Karofskys of the world started tormenting me. Trying to hide bruises from your father because you're legitimately afraid it will give him another heart attack - that's scary. Wondering every time you walk across a dark parking lot if some guy's going to Matthew Shepard you - that's scary. Worrying that the guy you like is going to secretly turn out to be a homophobic asshole or if, on the off chance you do manage to find a boyfriend, that the entire town is going to band together to collectively throw a fake decoy prom so you can't ruin the evening of every other teenager just by existing. Admitting who you are-"  
  
"Is tied up in everything else you just listed," Blaine replied in a way Puck found obnoxiously patronizing but Kurt didn't seem to detest so much. "All of that's tied up in homophobia - deep-seated, society-wide homophobia that's changing but not fast enough for a guy who's grown up thinking it's wrong to be who he is. You have a supportive family, and friends who love you for exactly who you are; that's probably not his experience. Especially being a jock, hanging out on teams and in locker rooms where people wouldn't be comfortable-"  
  
Puck had stayed quiet through the exchange, but he couldn't help it anymore. "That's bullshit," he stated. "I play football, I'm the school stud, and I'm dating a guy and don't care who knows it. I don't go around practically sexually assaulting dudes in empty locker rooms."   
  
Kurt's eyes widened as he wondered how practically was...practically, but Blaine was the one who spoke. "Which is why you need to talk to him."  
  
"The fuck I do."  
  
"He confided in you-" Puck snorted at that, but Blaine continued, "You're someone he can relate to. More than Kurt or I. Talk to him, tell him it's okay - to be confused, to be gay, to come out..."  
  
"Right," Puck replied sarcastically.  
  
Kurt seemed to ponder something, then finally said, "At the very least, see if you can calm him down enough to get him to back off." Status bullying was something he could prevent now - with him being on Cheerios and Puck and Finn in football, they had enough clout to keep at least themselves and probably Blaine safe. Status bullying with a homophobic twist - the easy insult, the quick joke - was what he was used to. When it turned actively homophobic by someone with a personal grudge, all bets were off. No uniform could protect any of them then.   
  
Puck wasn't wild about the fact that Kurt still wouldn't really look at him - he got why Kurt was pissed, he really did, but it was something he'd needed on a primal level and something Kurt couldn't do for him. Not this time, not with this...everything. Meaning he had some making-up to do with Kurt. And since the guy was unlikely to want to fuck anytime soon...this might seriously be his only option.  
  
"Fine," Puck said at last. "I'll talk to him."  
  
* * * * *  
  
The crisp air whipping around them as they wandered down High Street made it feel more like Christmas than the assortment of shopping bags clutched in their hands or the garland looped across the Short North arches above their heads. "So is that everyone?" Kurt asked.  
  
"Everyone but Puck, I think," Blaine corrected.  
  
Kurt's jaw tightened slightly. The few days since the threesome-interruptus had dulled the pain and frustration but not numbed it completely. "Still working on that one," he stated.  
  
Blaine knew that tone - the one that clearly said "Back off and no, I'm not talking about it." It had been a long week, after all, and he knew they'd had some kind of fight but didn't know why; neither was forthcoming. Puck was defensive about it, Kurt was just...bitter. "So let's drop the bags at the car and go do something. You don't have to be back any time soon, right?"  
  
Kurt shook his head. "It's Saturday, as long as I'm home by midnight or call my dad to let him know I'll be late, I'm fine."  
  
"Great. There's a place you'll love." Blaine's eyes lit up.  
  
"Is it the place Charlie's always talking about? With the drag queens?"  
  
"No."  
  
"The Latin place where Wes kept sneaking margaritas?" Kurt asked, having heard that story referenced on more than a few occasions.  
  
"No," Blaine chuckled. "That's further north. This isn't- It has food, but the food's not why we're going."  
  
"Then why are we going?" Kurt asked. "And where?"  
  
"You'll see," Blaine grinned. He reached to grasp Kurt's free hand and led him back to the car. This was one of those places he'd always wanted to be able to share with someone who would appreciate it, and he had the feeling that Kurt wouldn't just like seeing it - he  _needed_  to see it. Seeing how far out Lima was, how isolated Kurt was from anything gayer than the local theater guild and a once-a-year trip to Cleveland to see a national touring company...the way he talked about Singalong Sound of Music like it was the gayest place on earth because he'd seen guys dressed as nuns before...  
  
Yes. Kurt needed this.  
  
The inside of 54 looked nothing like its name would have led a patron to believe; it was much darker, wood-paneled...more divey than a glitter-covered nightclub. Kurt suspected it had probably been smokey prior to the ban - a law he was grateful for, but did think on occasion it destroyed the ambiance a little. A long bar took up most of one wall, and a piano sat at the center of the room, with tables scattered throughout the rest of the space. It wasn't too crowded, maybe half-full, which for early evening on a Saturday was probably not bad, Kurt supposed; he wouldn't know.  
  
"What is this place?" he asked Blaine, who looked confident and relaxed in a way Kurt most closely associated with the first day he'd met Blaine and watched him sing 'Teenage Dream.'  
  
"Piano bar," Blaine replied as he led Kurt to an empty table near the piano. Based on where the microphones were set up, Kurt suspected it had the best view - and based on the speed and ease with which Blaine led him, he also suspected Blaine had tested quite a few tables here for their view-level.  
  
"I don't have a fake ID or anything," he stated, a little concerned.  
  
"As long as you're not trying to order alcohol, they don't care. Technically you're meant to be 18 to get in, but they've never carded me."  
  
"You don't look twelve," Kurt pointed out.  
  
Blaine grinned. "Hey, you look easily fourteen now," he teased fondly. "With the growth spurt. Just drink Cokes all night and no one will look twice." He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it across the back of his chair.  
  
Kurt looked around in his best obviously-subtle way, wearing his trademarked 'I'm too busy to notice any of you peasants' look that he had in almost any new situation or place. Then he noticed it.  
  
Everyone there was gay.  
  
Okay, not quite everyone - he saw a couple tables with one or two guys and a group of giggling girls, a familiar tableau for him over the previous few years. But there were  _couples_  - gay male  _couples_  in every age and body type and level of flamboyance he could imagine. He'd only ever seen one couple (unless he was looking in a mirror) that wasn't on tv - the two guys at Dalton who were far more butch than he could ever imagine being. He'd never even seen both of Rachel's dads in one place at the same time. Now he saw two guys his dad's age in horrible plaid shirts sharing a plate of nachos, and two college-aged boys in preppy-chic clothes sipping drinks - an appletini and a beer - and a little old couple that Kurt couldn't believe were even still alive, one of whom was wearing a pink shirt and a fedora. This was...  
  
Overwhelming. And beautiful.  
  
"What can I get you boys?" the tall, thin waiter with more than a little swish in his step asked, pen poised over his pad.  
  
"Hey, Marty. Coke for me, and a burger with everything," Blaine replied.  
  
"You got it, Blaine. And you, sweetie?"  
  
Kurt was still distracted by the assorted couples - and one table with three guys who all seemed to be into each other, which was intriguing in a way he couldn't quite place. There was one guy in the corner doing a Carol Channing impression while his friends sang backup on an impromptu Hello, Dolly!, and guys in leather who looked like they wouldn't hurt a fly, and-  
  
"Kurt?" Blaine touched his arm.  
  
"Oh! Sorry. You were saying?"  
  
Blaine laughed softly, a forgiving smile in his eyes. "What would you like?"  
  
"A Shirley Temple and something...light?" He looked around for a menu but saw none.  
  
"They have salads," Blaine told him.  
  
"That sounds good." To be honest, at that point he probably would have said anything sounded good; he was too busy drinking in the atmosphere.  
  
"Be up soon," Marty promised as he walked quickly over to put the order in.  
  
"I had a hunch you might like it here," Blaine smiled.  
  
"The decor leaves something to be desired," Kurt said. Even after all this time, admitting when something impressed or moved him wasn't the easiest thing. "But-"  
  
"You've never been somewhere actually, statedly gay before," Blaine concluded, and Kurt gave a sheepish half-smile. "Just wait until the music starts - every showtune you've ever heard, all the classics, anything camp or theatrical. It's amazing."  
  
And it was. Some of the guys didn't have amazing voices, but they were so...happy. So genuinely enjoying themselves that it almost didn't matter. And some of the guys really were pretty good. Blaine said something about there being a gay mens chorus in Columbus that a couple of the guys were in, which Kurt made a mental note to check out - if it could feel like this? He was absolutely interested.  
  
It was like Dalton only...more. Everything good about that place amplified fifty times.  
  
Blaine set down his empty glass and took Kurt's hand. "C'mon."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Our turn," he declared.  
  
"Blaine-"  
  
"Please. Like you get nervous in front of a crowd," Blaine grinned. "I know you. Let's sing."  
  
Kurt rolled his eyes in mock protest but allowed himself to be led to the front of the room. Blaine pulled up a spare bench and sat, taking one microphone and handing the other to Kurt. "So what are we singing anyway?" he asked so only Blaine could hear.  
  
"You'll see," Blaine smiled winningly in a way that always made Kurt trust him even though he knew logically he had no good reason to. The smile grew as the opening notes of ["Baby, It's Cold Outside"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANzkTZGrby4) began and he saw recognition on Kurt's face. Good - he had picked a song they both knew. "You go first," he added with a playful nudge of Kurt's shoulder.  
  
"I really can't stay...I've got to go away-"  
  
While he knew logically that Blaine's break was actually higher than his and therefore wouldn't automatically sing under him, and even though they'd harmonized on many occasions with him a third or so below Blaine, it was still different in something like this - where he was singing the girl part and Blaine wasn't. It felt gay in the best sense of the word.  
  
"This evening has been so very nice..."  
  
He'd always thought he was kind of strange for singing kind of...in-character. Regardless of what the song was, whether it was originally from a musical or not...he tended to adopt whatever persona was singing the song. Sometimes the results were better than others - he was glad there were no videos of him in the leather jacket, hopped up on Vitamin D and trying to sing like Bon Jovi - but it wasn't something he could really help. Music just had that effect on him.  
  
Blaine apparently did the same thing. He'd never noticed it before, but the kind of...pursuing, flirtatious charm that was practically oozing from his friend fit the song too perfectly. And it was only natural to slip into the other role in the song, the coy young woman - though not a woman in this case - saying no when she wants to say yes but knows she's not supposed to.   
  
He wasn't sure why he almost shivered at the way the word "beautiful" fell from Blaine's lips. It was just a lyric - okay, a lyric repeated twice - but there was a kind of raw sincerity to it that Kurt swore he was imagining because never in his life had anyone thought he was beautiful. Except probably his mother when he was about four. He might be cute, Puck might now find him attractive in a way he still couldn't fathom, but he was most definitely not beautiful.  
  
Except maybe to Blaine now.  
  
No. That was crazy.  
  
"The neighbours might think," he sang, because if there was any chance that look was genuine there were going to be rumours flying before they knew what had happened.  
  
"But Baby it's bad out there," Blaine responded with this intense look and a grin that made Kurt want to say yes to anything Blaine was suggesting.  
  
That wasn't strange, right? Blaine had good ideas sometimes. Coming here, for instance. This was definitely a good idea.  
  
"I wish I knew how to break this spell..."  
  
The way Blaine looked at him during the line about eyes being like starlight made his breath catch. The usual twinkle in the familiar hazel eyes had been replaced with something a little darker, almost pleading.  
  
"I ought to say no, no, no sir-"  
  
"Mind if I move in closer?" Blaine sang, scooting a little closer on the bench.  
  
"At least I'm gonna say that I tried," Kurt added, feeling his resolve weakening. He was putty in Blaine's hands at this point, he would do whatever Blaine wanted him to do and he didn't care if that made him a crappy boyfriend. If Puck was having sex with two girls at once, he at least had the right to kiss a guy who looked at him like...like  _this_ , right?  
  
"What's the sense in hurting my pride?"  
  
By the time they got to the next verse, Blaine calling his lips delicious twice in four lines, his eyes kept dipping downward to Blaine's mouth. He had the ability to sing without his mouth looking funny...and those perfectly-straight, perfectly-white teeth...As his eyes flicked upwards to meet Blaine's gaze again, he saw a faint smirk of recognition - Blaine knew what he was looking at. And, from the way he glanced downward, he was doing the same thing. Kurt blushed and glanced away to sing about how he had to get home and needed a coat.  
  
That line didn't make any sense. Why wouldn't the person have a coat if they came to the party? They had to be wearing something warm when they arrived, because even if the blizzard had gotten bad in the previous three or so hours of a standard holiday cocktail occasion, it wouldn't have been tropical weather when they arrived or anything.  
  
That was the solution. Focus on the strange lyrics instead of the ones that made way too much sense.  
  
Blaine thwarted that with his pleading "How can you do this thing to me?" that made Kurt's breath hitch in his chest.  
  
"There's bound to be talk tomorrow...at least there will be plenty implied..."  
  
As the music moved into the few instrumental bars before the final notes, their eyes met. Their faces seemingly only a few inches apart, Blaine moved slowly forward. His eyes were dark, wide, nervous and yet completely sure at the same time, like this was the worst idea ever but exactly what he knew he needed to do. Kurt's heart thundered in his chest as he tried to draw in a full breath and barely managed to suck in a short gasp as Blaine's lips moved closer to his-  
  
Then broke away at the last moment. Blaine shakily, almost haltingly, began to sing the climactic ending. Kurt followed his lead, but at the same time he felt dizzy - like Blaine had somehow sucked all the oxygen from his vicinity. He came crashing back to reality as the applause began; someone from the back of the house called "Kiss him!"  
  
"He has a boyfriend," Blaine announced to a disappointed crowd of patrons; the fake plastered-on grin belied how he felt about the matter.  
  
"Dump the boyfriend - Blaine's cuter," one of the regulars called to an echo of laughter.  
  
"Sorry about that," Blaine whispered to Kurt as he led him back to their table.  
  
"Hm?" Kurt asked numbly.  
  
"I didn't mean to get everyone in the-...I wasn't trying to start anything."  
  
Blaine didn't fumble for words, Kurt knew that much. "It's okay."  
  
"We should probably go. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," Blaine added.  
  
"You didn't. It's fine," Kurt assured him, but Blaine was already pulling on his jacket and putting cash on the table to pay for their meal. Kurt followed suit, but his limbs felt almost clumsy as he tried to force his arms into his jacket sleeves; the entire evening had a sort of surreal fog painted around it now, and he couldn't quite shake the feeling that it had all been some kind of strange dream.  
  
The drive home was silent for about ten minutes before Kurt finally managed to hit on what it was about what Blaine had said that bothered him. "My having a boyfriend isn't a reason not to kiss me," he stated out of the blue.  
  
Blaine's head jerked towards him quickly. "What?"  
  
"Puck isn't a reason not to kiss me. At least, not a good reason." Kurt kept his eyes glued to the road so he couldn't see what look crossed Blaine's face. Judging from the general, kind of dumbfounded response, it was probably a look of confusion. "It's an open relationship, I can-" He drew in a deep breath. "I can kiss people if I want. For that matter, I can do whatever I want with people. Assuming I want to. Which I would if the right person asked," he added, cursing his own lack of ability to be smooth or suave or whatever quality it was that Puck had that made this whole thing work for him. For that matter, Blaine was usually better at this than he was, and he hadn't even seen that particular side of Blaine since they weren't dating or anything. But Blaine had the whole irresistible charm thing going for him, and  _he_  was...much clumsier with situations than most people would suspect.  
  
Blaine said nothing. Kurt waited but still received no response. By the time they'd gone a few miles and still with nothing, Kurt blurted out, "You think I'm a slut now, don't you?"  
  
Blaine's eyes widened and he sputtered out a laugh. "No - God, Kurt, no." Kurt relaxed about half a hair. "I don't think that. I think Puck's an idiot."  
  
Kurt's head turned sharply towards Blaine, trying to figure out what in the world Blaine could mean by that - or how or why - while still avoiding crashing the car. Blaine stood to benefit immensely from this arrangement, why wouldn't he-...unless he didn't actually like Kurt  _like that_  and Kurt was just making a complete fool of himself. He wasn't putting that outside the realm of possibility. "Why?" he asked finally.  
  
"Because you deserve to be so much more than someone's standby date," Blaine stated sincerely, with a kind of reverence that made Kurt shiver.  
  
He expected a kiss or something to come then - well, something anyway, since he was driving and making out while navigating down Route 30 was a bad idea. Not like he had any experience in that department, but he could imagine. Maybe a hand on his shoulder or something. Some indication that Blaine understood what he'd been saying about the 'if the right person asked' part. Instead they just continued silently to Lima.  
  
* * * * *  
  
It was, like, the last conversation Puck ever wanted to have.  
  
Drawing in a deep breath, and flexing his arms as he knew there was a decent chance he'd have to slam the dumbass into a locker again if he tried anything, he closed the door of the weight room and stalked over to the room's only occupant: Karofsky. "Hey."  
  
There was a flicker of recognition in Karofsky's eyes, then fear, then fury. "What do you want, fag?" he tossed out angrily.  
  
Puck sighed and quirked an eyebrow. He had no idea why he was even doing this. Not like Kurt would suddenly stop being pissed at him for it. Not like Kurt was even the one who really wanted this -  _Blaine_  was the one who thought Karofsky was worth saving or something. Pompous pain in the ass. "What you did-"  
  
"You tell anyone about that?"  
  
Lying was the best policy here; saying Kurt and Blaine knew would only get them killed at this point, judging by the cornered look in Karofsky's eyes that he was trying miserably to hide. "Nope."  
  
"Good. If you do - if you ever do? I'll kill you."  
  
Right. Because this dumbfuck was totally a match for Puckasawrus. Whatever. Dude was scared and had nothing else going for him. Idle threats were the one thing he thought he had working on his side. "Look, I get you're...confused or whatever. You like a guy, it's..." He sighed and tried to channel whatever psychobabble shit he'd heard people say on afternoon talk shows. Dr. Phil or whoever. "It's scary or something, you think..."  
  
"What, you think I like you or something?" Karofsky asked in a kind of fake disgust that made Puck roll his eyes. "You came on to me, then you come in here to lecture me about joining your homo brigade?"  
  
Never-fucking-mind. Blaine wanted to talk about self-acceptance, he could do this himself. This was bullshit. "Whatever. I could give a rat's ass. You're a fucking coward, dude. You get all self-pitying and shit because you like dudes? That's weak. It's pathetic. You go pick on kids smaller than you that you know aren't gonna fight back 'cause you're scared of them 'cause they are who they are? That's not badass; that's the opposite of badass. It's just fucking sad. You keep doing it, I'll kick your ass 'cause I got their back, you hear me?"  
  
"Get the fuck out of here," Karofsky barked.  
  
Puck rolled his eyes. He knew this wasn't gonna do anything. He started to leave, then a question stopped him. "What's your deal with my boy Finn, anyway? Kurt, Blaine - they're gay and open, I get it. You hate being gay, you hate anything gay, you hate them. But Finn's like the least gay guy I know. So what's the deal, you like him or something?" he added sarcastically.  
  
Then he saw the look in Karofsky's eyes - pure and unadulterated guilt. That was a look that said to all the world 'shit, you caught me.'  
  
Oh no fucking way. No goddamn fucking  _way_.  
  
Even the guy who mauled him in a locker room out of deep gay-shame liked freaking Finn over him?   
  
"Not cool, dude. And you kiss me again, I'll fucking kill  _you_ ," he added in a low growl as he stalked out of the room.   
  
It wasn't hard to find who he was looking for. "Hey, 'fro!"  
  
Jacob froze, hands fiddling with a pen nervously. "What do you want from me?" he asked. He shoved his hand into his pocket to retrieve his lunch money. "I'm sorry - you hadn't done this in awhile, I'm unprepared, it's only..." he pulled out the cash he had and pressed it into Puck's hand. "Only $2.50, but I'll bring more tomorrow, just don't hurt me-"  
  
"Relax," Puck told him. Jacob's eyes narrowed, like he wasn't sure what was coming but he knew it was bad. "Look, dude, I'm not allowed to throw you into shit anymore because it's against my probation or whatever, and Kurt gets really pissed when I do crap like that, probably 'cause I did it to him or whatever, but...if you throw yourself into the dumpster I've got a story with your name on it. And trust me - it's worth it."  
  
"Really?"  
  
Puck nodded. "Totally."  
  
"Can I pick the dumpster?" Jacob asked, eyes lighting up.  
  
Puck fixed him with a badass glare. "Don't push it, dweeb."  
  
"Okay," Jacob replied nervously as Puck led him out to his usual dumpster. "Can I at least set down my bag first?"  
  
Puck was feeling generous - okay, kind of pleased with himself, even. "Sure."   
  
This would teach the douchebag to mess with him.


	5. Chapter 5

Puck wasn't sure how Blaine got so good at MarioKart, especially considering it was an ancient version from when they were, like, three, so it wasn't like the guy probably sat at home beating the computer-challenge levels every night or anything. Though that was kind of how he'd gotten so good - a lot of late nights hanging by himself at the house after Finn had curfew and crap.  
  
Not like Blaine was kicking his ass or anything, they were pretty evenly matched, but usually no one even came  _close_ to beating the Puckster on an N64 game. Of course, it helped that Artie was more into computer video games, and Sam was a Playstation guy, and Finn...Finn just sucked at driving to begin with, let alone when there were banana peels involved.  
  
"Can I ask you something?" Blaine asked as the winner screen scrolled.  
  
"You just did," Puck replied.  
  
Blaine smiled faintly at the valid point, then drew in a deep breath. "I just have one request - if you're going to kick my ass, avoid the face. Please."  
  
"What the fuck are you planning on asking?" Puck asked, eyebrows knitting together.  
  
Blaine sighed, then drew in another breath and explained, "When Kurt and I went out the other day, there was a...a kind of moment. You know, like when you're hanging out with someone you like, and you would kiss them if circumstances were different?" He watched Puck's face carefully for some sign he should start running and saw only a set jaw. "I didn't because the two of you are together, and I told him as much. I've been in that situation before - my ex and I...it wasn't a great relationship, but there was this really annoying guy who kept trying to flirt his way in and steal away the guy I was dating. I don't ever want to be that person in the equation, to put someone else in that position - especially after you've been such a good guy. You literally put a roof over my head when you barely knew me," he added. "On the way home, Kurt said that dating you wasn't a good enough reason not to kiss me." He felt strange saying that, like he was ratting out his friend to his friend's boyfriend, but there was no way he could see of having this conversation without putting the entire situation on the table. "That it's an open relationship. I wanted to..." He paused, tried to find the right verb, then restarted the sentence. "Kurt doesn't make things up. I know that. But I wanted to make sure that he wasn't overstating the availability."  
  
Puck didn't say anything. He didn't know what an appropriate response would be anyway.  
  
He knew what he wanted to say. He  _wanted_  to tell Blaine to get the fuck away from his boy. He wanted to tell Kurt that practically throwing himself at the prepschool guy was getting old, even if it had only been for a couple weeks and even if Blaine wasn't technically at prepschool anymore.   
  
But on some level he had to respect Blaine saying something. Not like it was something guys did or whatever - this was either something gay dudes did that he wasn't aware of, or a cue Blaine had taken from girls that he'd never heard of, or something just Blaine did because the guy was kind of a freak and had a weird honour complex Puck didn't quite get. Cause really, Blaine could have just started making out with Kurt and not said anything. Waited for Puck to see the two of them together.  
  
Not like Puck hadn't been that guy before. Not like he'd been shy about taking people who were already dating someone, either. And if the roles were reversed? If he was in a car with Kurt when the boy was being flirty as hell like he could get sometimes, talking about how he wasn't tied to Blaine and could make out with anyone he wanted? The SUV would've been pulling off to the side of the road so they could fool around in the backseat and that's all there was to it.   
  
What he'd done with Quinn wasn't that different. And was probably worse because she didn't have permission from Finn to do what she wanted on the side...and then they'd lied about it for like six months.  
  
Blaine was seriously coming to him and asking permission. Puck couldn't decide if that was cowardly and weak or totally legit and respectable.   
  
"If you tell me to back off, I will," Blaine stated sincerely. He pushed his hair back off his forehead and awkwardly plucked a strand off his hand.   
  
He wasn't sure he had any right to say that. As he was contemplating whether his right to say it actually made a difference - after all, who cared about whether they had an actual claim to someone before they said everyone else needed hands-off? The whole Rachel-Finn-Santana debacle was proof of that, right? - his mother came downstairs. She had the look of pure disapproval on, the one he'd been seeing for as long as he could remember, that was almost always followed by the use of his full name and a passive-aggressive guilt trip about something he was failing to do.  
  
She didn't disappoint. "Noah Ezekiel Puckerman!"  
  
Had he mentioned lately how much he fucking hated his middle name? The first name was bad enough - there was a reason he went by Puck, and not just 'cause there were way more badass nicknames that came from it - but Ezekiel? How much had she hated him when he was born?  
  
"Who is this boy?" she demanded, gesturing to Blaine.  
  
While Blaine had never really met Puck's mom except in passing a couple times, he had a feeling he knew where this was going. He tried to figure out exactly what the appropriate response would be and just how much Puck should take the lead before it became hanging Puck out to dry. After all, it was his family, but it was a favour.  
  
"Blaine Anderson - he's in glee club with me," Puck replied simply.  
  
"And why is he living here?" she asked with a pointed look. "I was going to try to clean that room of yours when I saw his sleeping bag. Honestly, Noah, I don't work hard enough? There aren't enough mouths to feed with you and your sister? The utility bills aren't high enough without a fourth person living here? But I guess asking me if he could live here first didn't occur to you - don't mind me, I'm just your mother-"  
  
Puck knew he could put an end to the entire issue if he wanted, let his mom kick Blaine to the curb, but then it would go back to Kurt being miserable at McKinley and Blaine being stuck at some other crappy school, and as much as he wanted the guy to just fuck off...he didn't want him to suffer that much. The dude was on his team now, whether he liked it or not; he had to protect him regardless of whether he really wanted to. If it was a contest between his family being okay and his team, then it got dicey, but he knew his mom was exaggerating about the mouths to feed thing - and he knew Blaine had insisted on buying groceries last time they went out and kept trying to get Puck to name an appropriate amount to chip in for rent. So it wasn't an actual problem where he needed to pick his family over his team; this was just his mom being Jewish.  
  
So he needed to come up with a plan to get her to let Blaine stay. With Finn there would be a few dozen excuses he could make - Carole's shift changing, or remodeling the Hummels' house so Finn would have a room, or whatever. With Kurt, he could just let Sarah do all the talking about how great and cool and homework-helpy he was. With Blaine...  
  
He looked the guy over as his mother continued her guilt-tripping. Then he saw it.  
  
The hair.  
  
"Mom, he's from Temple," Puck stated. She stopped mid-rant and looked at them both curiously, waiting for Puck to explain further. "His parents had to go to Israel to do work - they're tree planters and stuff, y'know, after that fire - and Rachel was gonna take him in but they were redoing the upstairs. So he came here."  
  
"From Temple?" she asked, regarding Blaine skeptically.  
  
Blaine looked at Puck, wide-eyed, and Puck's look told him to just go with it. "Yes ma'am."  
  
"Your last name is Anderson?"  
  
Blaine fumbled to come up with a response, so Puck jumped in. "His mom's Jewish, his dad converted."  
  
"That right?"  
  
"Yes," Blaine nodded with his most charming smile and desperately hoped there would be no follow-up trivia questions. He knew Hanukkah had just ended and had something to do with eight nights of oil, he had a broad understanding of the history of Israel thanks to a unit in his world history class, and he vaguely knew that Rosh Hoshannah was new years and it wasn't in December. Anything beyond that and he would quickly reveal Puck's statement as a ruse.  
  
Luckily for him, Mrs. Puckerman seemed to accept it with a fond smile and a touch of his cheek. "Sleeping on the air mattress on the floor in Noah's room - you couldn't have set him up in the spare bedroom, at least until your Nana gets back from Florida?" she chastised Puck gently.  
  
"I'll move him in there now," Puck replied. "C'mon, Blaine, let's move your stuff," he added as he headed for the stairs. Apparently he was just as eager to avoid questions, Blaine thought with a kind of rueful grin.  
  
When they got up to the bedroom and Blaine gathered his laptop, he offered quietly, "You didn't have to do that. Considering the conversation we were having..."  
  
"I know," Puck replied evenly, not looking at him.  
  
"You had every reason to send me back to Columbus. A ninety-minute drive each way would certainly inhibit any dating attempts, you could've-"  
  
"I'm not gonna be a douche. Kurt's free to have what he wants."  
  
Puck wasn't about to say that he hoped what Kurt wanted still included him. He wasn't quite that much of a wuss.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Kurt drew in a deep breath as he double-checked the mirror. The new Cheerios uniform didn't fit him quite as nicely as the old one did - not because he'd put on weight, he'd checked that first thing. Though Ms. Sylvester had commented on his sudden height change during his first weekly weigh-in, he was wearing a smaller-waisted uniform pant this year so he was still in her good graces. That didn't mean he planned on eating anything more filling than a leafy green salad sans dressing in the near future, but at least she hadn't mentioned his pear hips or told him to lose a few pounds yet.  
  
It was still early. By next week, he was sure it would be part of his check-in.   
  
Mostly it was the lack of a side panel that made it look odd, he concluded. He managed to look wider in this one - they all did. He'd noticed it on Quinn earlier in the year, though he obviously hadn't said anything. He wondered why Ms. Sylvester would select a uniform that made her Cheerios look  _less_  fit and competitive; maybe she didn't honestly know better, though he found that unlikely.   
  
In either event, that wasn't important. Where the side stripes hit him wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that it was a Cheerios uniform and he would be wearing it proudly as he strutted down the halls.  
  
Where, with any luck, he would not be met with a slushie for the first day since his return to McKinley.  
  
He took a few minutes to select the best black jacket to go with the ensemble - he had hated the uniform aspect so much more before going to Dalton; the sense of mourning for the clothes he couldn't wear as often wasn't there now. After all, he still had at least two days per school week to wear whatever he wanted - that was two more than he'd had for the previous couple months. After pulling on his shined two-tone shoes (and being glad that Ms. Sylvester hadn't decided he needed to switch to boring tennis shoes like the rest of the Cheerios), he hurried upstairs to start the morning pick-up ritual.  
  
Today was the day his luck at school would change. He could feel it.  
  
* * * * *  
Will hurried down the hallway, dodging past students as he tried to catch up with his target. "Sue. Can I talk to you?"  
  
"That's Principal Sue, William," Sue stated, but she did stop in the hallway. She'd had a slow morning, had only gotten to threaten a few pathetic students, received a mere handful of complaint letters (regarding her plan to remove all desks from the classrooms and instead require students to lay their books on the floor and perform pushups while reading from them) to dictate responses to. She had time to pause, if only to find something worthy of mockery with which to to amuse herself for the next few hours.   
  
"I see Kurt's back on Cheerios," Will stated accusatorily.  
  
"Yes he is."  
  
"Are you seriously stooping so low in your ridiculous neverending war against me and the glee club that you would coerce him to join -"  
  
"I'm gonna stop you right there, and not just because the fumes from the heap of product in your hair are becoming so noxious they're about to violate three separate state health codes." She held up her hand. "I may have tipped off a school to give a student an opportunity that included permanent residency status. I may have ignored all rules made by the Ohio Cheerleading Association that I found to be an unconstitutional violation of my rights as a super-majority of one. But I have never sabotaged a student's opportunity to win."  
  
"You gave our set list to our competition!"  
  
"One of my students," she corrected. "You know what bullies respond to, Will? Not a lecture, not detention. A bigger kid pushing back. Lady may as well be working for Santa making toys the rest of the year, nothing I can do about that one - I tried ordering an authentic medieval torture rack, thought I'd increase the average height of the squad by 2-4 inches, but there were problems with shipping and it ended up somewhere in Myanmar. If you can't get size, get numbers." She looked him in the eye. "That kid comes near him, he's got thirty people who have his back, including one Sue Sylvester. And you think it's about a vendetta against you? No wonder he told me he wasn't rejoining your band of misfits. Shame - would've been an extra eight and a half students keeping an eye out." She turned and started to walk away, brushing past Sam and Finn without a second glance. "Don't walk too close to the furnace room - you'll light up faster than Michael Jackson's jheri curl during an ill-fated Pepsi commercial."  
  
* * * * *  
"Oh my god, did you hear?"  
  
"I knew it."  
  
"He totally checked me out in the locker room all last year - fucking gross, man."  
  
While Kurt exited the library into a swirling conversation the subject of whom he couldn't determine, he was reasonably certain for the first time in his life that it wasn't about him. For one thing, the conversation didn't come to a screeching halt as he walked down the hall.  
  
"Football and hockey? I always figured baseball - y'know, with the tight pants?"  
  
"Just 'cause  _you_  like checking out baseball ass doesn't mean Karofsky does."  
  
Oh god.  _That_  was who this was about?  
  
He was ashamed to admit the faint sensation of satisfaction bubbling up at the downfall of the guy who had tortured him for so long. He shook his head and clamped down on his schadenfreude - it still came down to homophobia, that wasn't okay. And no one deserved to be treated the way he had been - the way Karofsky would be now...not even Karofsky.   
  
He continued down the hall to his locker. After stowing his French book, he grabbed his can of hairspray and closed his eyes as he reapplied.  
  
The slam of his locker door made him jump and sent the non-aerosol can clattering to the ground. "Sup, Hummel?" Karofsky demanded. "You tell anyone what that boyfriend of yours said?" he added in a low growl.  
  
Kurt stared back at him, doing his level best to project the least-scared image he could. Karofsky could smell fear, like a dog - and unlke a dog, he took active pleasure in exploiting that fear. "No," he stated, proud of himself as he kept his voice from quivering.  
  
"You sure about that?" Karofsky jerked his head away from the locker in the vague direction of the hallway writ large.  
  
"Very."  
  
Karofsky's eyes narrowed. He obviously wasn't getting the answers he wanted, was hoping for, and Kurt contemplated lying for a moment in the hopes of diffusing some of the anger that was obviously building beneath the furrowed brow that made an already-not-bright bohemoeth of a jock look positively cro magnon. There was a sudden spark of inspiration in his eyes; Kurt found himself picturing a lightbulb over Karofsky's head - a very dim, Christmas-bulb-sized light that promptly cracked and shattered from the exertion of coming up with whatever hairbrained idea had him so excited. "You homos all stick together," he said slowly, a defiant glare settling over his features. "Puckerman in there, sticking up for you and that other fag kid...queers stick together." Kurt didn't respond; he didn't plan on it until he had a better sense of where this was going.   
  
"So if I kick your ass real good..." There was a kind of sick grin on Karofsky's face now, like he was so pleased with the idea, but at the same time it looked almost manic - it was the only idea he could come up with. "Not like I don't have a defense, right? You were coming on to me, you- you  _liked_  me," he added with obvious disgust. "What choice did I have?"   
  
Karofsky's chunky, rough hand moved up to Kurt's neck, pressing him back against the locker, and he wondered for a moment if Karofsky was going to rip out his throat or kiss him. The tight, twisted expression wasn't giving him any clues, revealed nothing except that the jock had lost it and was grasping at straws - anything to keep from facing what everyone was saying about him, anything to avoid facing what he already knew was true. He looked cornered, terrified - and Kurt thought that if either of them should look scared at that moment, it should be the one with a hand on his throat. Just saying.   
  
And then he was gone. Storming down the hallway, using his elbow to check some freshman into a locker.  
  
Kurt was shaking, he knew that, even if he couldn't identify exactly why - why this had been so much different than the thousands of other times someone at school had threatened him. He was used to that, wasn't he? He was used to bullies and- and all of that. But this was...  
  
He felt dizzy. He could see the hallway but couldn't make out any of it, couldn't pinpoint any of the students he'd known for years-  
  
Except a flash of black curly hair.  
  
"Are you okay?" When he didn't answer, Blaine demanded again - more worried this time "Kurt. Are you okay?"  
  
He gave a quivery nod and tried to pull himself together. He was fine. Fine. Unharmed. He probably wouldn't even have a bruise from this one, he hadn't gotten slammed that hard and the hand on his throat wasn't anywhere near tight enough to leave any visible damage.  
  
He couldn't figure out why this was so much more...terrifying.   
  
His legs felt like jello and he felt a familiar bicep loop around his back, leading him to the choir room. "No," he finally squeaked out.  
  
"Mr. Schue's not here - he's got a class," Puck assured him.  
  
"You're sure?" Blaine asked.  
  
"Yeah, dude, it's where I'm s'posed to be," Puck replied as he guided Kurt into a chair. "What happened?"  
  
"Karofsky..."  
  
"He kiss you?" Puck asked. He'd felt kind of like Kurt looked after that happened to him, and Kurt was always more sensitive and expressive about things that upset him.   
  
"No. He-..." He tried to figure out exactly what had been done. Because it wasn't a kiss and it wasn't a locker slam and he didn't  _technically_  try to kill him - he hadn't even said "I'm going to kill you", what he'd  _said_  was that he'd kick ass, but the look in his eyes were so much more... _something_.  
  
"He just scared me," Kurt concluded meekly.  
  
Blaine shook his head. "No." Kurt looked up at him finally and realized it was the angriest he'd ever seen Blaine look - usually the guy looked kind of unflappably confident and happy enough. Over the course of the week there had been more looking scared than Kurt had been used to. But this...he looked furious. Like he wanted to shove Karofsky down the nearest set of stairs. "When I came around the corner, he had your hand on your neck and you were pressed against a locker. That's not 'just scaring you,' Kurt. That's a felony."  
  
"Probably a misdemeanor," Puck replied, and they stared at him. "My bunkmate in juvie."  
  
Blaine rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Kurt. "We're going to go report this."  
  
"Right - like that'll do anything," Puck scoffed.   
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Dude, no offense, but you've been here like a week. You don't know how things work here. Reporting it doesn't do shit."  
  
"The Principal is your coach, you've told me how she sticks up for you," Blaine pointed out to Kurt, as if he could respond to Puck's points without ever addressing Puck. "Remember what I said when I told you I was coming here? About how, if there were two of us, we'd be a lot harder to ignore if there was a complaint? What's the point in any of that if we sit here and do nothing?"  
  
Kurt drew in a slow, deep breath. He felt less light-headed now, more in control of his limbs, but at the same time he felt like there was no way this could end well. When Ms. Sylvester inevitably told him there was nothing she could do, Karofsky was certainly going to retaliate. After all, if Karofsky had come after him for something Puck may or may not have said that may or may not have let someone know the deep dark secret of his sexuality...  
  
But maybe Blaine was right. What was the point of having a buddy system if he still didn't do anything?   
  
"Let's go see Ms. Sylvester," Kurt concluded finally. He stood and smoothed his red pants, adjusted his hair, and pulled on every mask he could grasp and cling to. Now was no time to look like an overly-paranoid wuss, even if that was what he felt like.  
  
* * * * *  
  
"So he threatened you with violence, then tried to strangle you against a locker."  
  
"Yes," Blaine answered for Kurt.   
  
When she gave Kurt a hard glare, as if to ask 'you sure about that, Lady?', he nodded and replied with a quiet but definitive, "Yes."  
  
"What do you know about this?" she asked, turning her attention to Puck.  
  
"I didn't see this one. But he totally did it."  
  
"Well unfortunately, Puckerman, I can't just take your word for it. Otherwise I could believe everything Jacob ben Israel ever claimed, and only about 90% of that's true."  
  
"The latest post is, too," he replied. "He kissed me in the locker room - against my will or whatever. Like I'd ever kiss him," he added with his 'I'm too big a stud for that' neck bob.  
  
Blaine barely managed to conceal his glare. Revealing something like that in casual conversation was beyond violative of someone's privacy. It was outing - whether Puck intended it that way or not. As he realized that the only people who had known about the locker room incident were sitting in that room-  
  
...Puck was the source of this guy's story. He had to be.   
  
How fucking  _dare_  he do something like that? Blaine didn't care if the guy was the freaking Unabomber and you saw him in a gay club - you didn't out people. You certainly didn't force someone out of the closet to embarrass them or get revenge or whatever your own twisted reasons were. People ended up  _dead_  when there was an outing sometimes, and who was Puck to know if that was going to be the case here or not?  
  
For that matter, if Karofsky had a harder grip, the person who could've ended up seriously injured would've been  _Kurt_.  
  
He was so busy seething that he almost missed the most important statement of the conversation.  
  
"Based on what you've told me - two instances of assault, one of those with witnesses...he'll be expelled effective immediately."  
  
* * * * *  
  
"You wanted to see me, Mr. Schue?"  
  
"Yeah, Finn, thanks." He offered a smile before diving right in to the meat of why he'd called the tenor in. "I want to talk to you about Kurt."  
  
"What about him?" Finn felt awkward being asked about him. He didn't know what the conversation was going to be about, but it just  _felt_  strange. Maybe it was a normal thing for family, though, he reasoned - he'd never had anyone but his mom for a person to ask about, maybe people asked Tina about her sisters all the time. Puck and his sister were too far apart in age probably, but Tina's were only a couple years ahead of and behind her, so maybe...  
  
"Since he came back he's been...upset. Combative. I'm worried about him. Now I see he's back on Cheerios but refusing to come back to New Directions, and I think maybe...I don't know. It feels strange - out of character for him. So I thought I'd ask you."  
  
"Yeah, he's upset - it sucks here," Finn replied matter-of-factly.   
  
"I know glee was an important outlet for him before, and I know he's someone who expresses himself strongly through music. I'm concerned that if he doesn't have that...something could happen." The line Kurt had thrown out the other day, about how if he were someone who was going to kill himself... He'd had experience with a few kids earlier in his teaching career, mostly close calls but one who had actually died. He still remembered how hard that had hit the school - had hit  _him_. He'd had the student for Spanish and also for a study hall and hadn't noticed anything was bothering her. He thought she was fine until suddenly she wasn't, but looking back he had seen all kinds of warning signs. He didn't want to risk missing them this time around - especially now that there were all the gay suicides in the news, Kurt acting so out of character was raising every red flag imaginable.  
  
"I don't think so, Mr. Schue, he wouldn't do that to his dad. They're really close, and they already lost his mom and everything."  
  
"I think he needs to come back to glee club. Maybe if you could try to bring him back - talk to him. He trusts you. Maybe if you get Puck on board too, y'know, this new Blaine kid...I think it's important that he come back. Make sure he knows there are people looking out for him, people who care about him."  
  
Finn remembered the conversation he'd overheard in the hall with Mr. Schue and Coach Sylvester, where they each thought Kurt coming back was all some kind of vendetta against the other. Or that Kurt joining Cheerios was a personal attack or something on Mr. Schue. But Ms. Sylvester was kinda right - having a whole group of people standing up for Kurt could only be good. And she had already expelled Karofsky when Blaine and Puck went to her about the bullying - he didn't know what happened yet, but he knew Karofsky getting kicked out of school had to be a good thing.  
  
...and he knew Mr. Schue hadn't been part of any of that.   
  
In fact, it was kinda the opposite. Mr. Schue was the one who filed the complaints and stuff, and he brought Kurt into it when he compared Dalton with the thing with Sunshine, and all that was why Kurt had come back, wasn't it? Why he'd lost his scholarship?   
  
He didn't think it was meant to be mean or anything - Kurt had muttered something the other day about Mr. Schue trying to steal him back so he wouldn't compete against them, but Finn didn't think that sounded right. Mr. Schue wasn't like that - Ms. Corcoran, maybe. Coach Sylvester, definitely. But Mr. Schue was cool, he was all about being your best and winning that way. He couldn't have  _meant_  to get Kurt kicked out of Dalton, right?  
  
Something Burt had said to him after the first dinner where Puck came over as Kurt's boyfriend popped into his head, and he wasn't sure what made him think of it, but it sounded right: "Even if you weren't  _trying_  to say he was contagious and covering every guy he talked to in sludge, that's what it meant." The point had been that, even if he was trying and kinda meant well, like he thought he was protecting his best friend from the guy who had been a total creeper to him the year before, it still didn't make what he was doing okay because Kurt got really hurt by it. He felt bad about that part now that he sorta got it, even if he maintained that Kurt fixing up their parents to share a room with him was still way over the line.  
  
Mr. Schue had meant well, he got that part. For one thing, his teacher was big on honesty and sincerity and expressing yourself, so he wouldn't lie about something like that. He seemed like he really was trying to help. But that didn't mean what he'd done was okay.  
  
What he'd done was  _wrong_.  
  
"Mr. Schue, I know you didn't mean to hurt him or whatever, but things really suck for him here. They suck for other people when he's around, too, but it's not totally his fault," he added for clarity, even though Mr. Schue wasn't likely to chew him out for implying it was Kurt's fault the same way Burt or Puck or someone would. "I mean, I get slushied sometimes 'cause I'm in glee club or 'cause Karofsky thinks I'm gay now...everyone  _knows_  he's gay, so he gets it a lot worse. And people throw him against lockers and harass him and stuff. He's not- Okay, yeah, he cries at a lot of stuff, but it's different with things like that. It gets him really down...and he didn't have that at Dalton, y'know? He could worry about other stuff there instead of whether some guy was gonna bodycheck him without a helmet. The only reason he even came back here was because Blaine left Dalton to come here, too - he was gonna be doing homeschool stuff in the basement otherwise, so he'd be safe."   
  
Finn shifted awkwardly. "I...you know how I say you're kinda like the closest thing I've had to a dad? I mean, kinda with Burt now, but still. You were the first guy who really believed in me or whatever, told me I could be more than football and the tall awkward kid, y'know? But Kurt...He's my brother. And I get that maybe you didn't mean to screw things up for him, like you thought you were helping, but he was happy there and you kinda ruined it. He's my little brother now, so I've gotta protect him, and if that means he doesn't want to come back to glee...I'm not gonna try to talk him into it," he concluded, sounding defeated and sad and disillusioned.   
  
Mr. Schue was supposed to know what to do when things sucked. He was kinda the one adult who talked to him without being pasteurizing or whatever, but he said things so they really made sense. The guy helped a lot after the whole Puck and Quinn thing, and when he felt like his mom was forgetting about his dad, and after he figured out that Grilled Cheesus probably hadn't been the reason things happened. He was supposed to know how to make things make sense; he wasn't supposed to make them worse.   
  
"See you in class, Mr. Schue," he said quietly as he left. He hoped at the very least Burt might be proud of him for looking out for Kurt; he didn't know if this was the right thing to do, but he felt like it might be.   
  
Otherwise he'd be out two dads, and he never really had one to begin with.  
  
* * * * *  
  
He was grateful for practice on a day like this. Nothing like wearing your body out completely to the point where you weren't sure you'd be able to stand to help take your mind off things.  
  
At some point around 5, he glanced up to see Blaine sitting in the bleachers, a stack of books to one side, with a thick paperback text open on his lap while he took notes. He wanted to wave but didn't dare; Ms. Sylvester would have none of that. She didn't tolerate displays of emotion from her Cheerios, and that included any show of friendship. Anything except Showface! would not be accepted.   
  
When she finally released them for the evening - their incompetence was damaging her retinas, she claimed - Kurt walked over to the bleachers and sat on the bench beneath where Blaine had set up shop. "Working hard?" he asked with a smile. He was exhausted, and more than a little disgusting - the polyester didn't breathe as well as he would have liked - but Blaine didn't seem to mind.  
  
"A lot to catch up on, cramming twelve years of education into a weekend."  
  
Kurt's eyes narrowed slightly in confusion. "What could we possibly be covering here that you didn't learn at Dalton?"  
  
"Oh - no. Hebrew school," Blaine replied as he gathered the books and started down the bleachers.  
  
"Really."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Why-"  
  
"Apparently that's the way to get me into Puck's mom's good graces." Blaine's grin was contagious.  
  
"From what little I know about Judaism - mainly from Yentl and Fiddler on the Roof - Puck's brand of Judaism is as nontraditional as it is deeply-rooted. But you don't mess with his 'Hebes,'" Kurt stated as he slipped gracefully off the bleachers and started across the empty gym.  
  
"Are you okay?" Blaine asked, catching his arm gently. Kurt turned to face him, and the concern in Blaine's eyes was intense in a way he couldn't begin to describe, but it made his heart race a little. "Today was pretty intense."  
  
"Better now that he's gone," he replied honestly. Surely it was the four-hour practice that had him out of breath. That was the only explanation for this...whatever this feeling was.   
  
"Good." Blaine nodded a little like that was all he wanted to ask, but he didn't move away. His hand slipped off Kurt's wrist and moved up to his shoulder; the movement was awkward, but Kurt wasn't complaining. His eyes fluttered closed and he drew in a shallow breath, which Blaine took as his cue - his sign that he wasn't imagining all of this.  
  
It wasn't stealing Kurt away if Puck gave permission and Kurt wanted this too, right?  
  
Kurt had thought about kissing Blaine on more than a few occasions, especially since the duet at 54, but he hadn't thought much about what it would actually be like. Mostly he'd imagined little things - where, when...whether Blaine's lips would be as soft as they looked, what he would taste like...  
  
It wasn't until he felt Blaine's gentle, almost hesitant mouth on his that he realized this was kind of what he'd always imagined. Not necessarily with Blaine, but...how he'd envisioned his first kiss. From the time he was little and knew he'd rather be kissing princes and than princesses, it had been something like this - sweet, at school but after everyone else had left, over in barely more than an instant but the kind of kiss that felt like it lingered for a lot longer. With a guy who looked out for him, helped protect him...  
  
His actual first kiss had been nothing like that - halfway to vaguely-stoned in his dark living room while he tried to forget about his father being in the hospital. And yes, it had led to some great things, he wasn't about to discount that, but at the same time he kind of felt like...like maybe there was a reason this was what he had envisioned. Like maybe it felt right for a reason.  
  
He wasn't sure to do with that thought.  
  
Blaine pulled back a few inches and murmured, "Okay?" with a shy grin. Kurt offered a lopsided half-smile and nodded, and Blaine leaned in to kiss him again.  
  
From the side of the gymnasium, Puck watched them. He wanted to tell Blaine to knock it the fuck off - that he rescinded whatever implied permission he'd given. He wanted to ask Kurt what the fuck he could want from this hobbit that he wasn't getting already.  
  
But he had a feeling he knew the answer.  
  
Even if he couldn't name the precise traits Kurt saw in Blaine that he found lacking in Puck, he knew they were there and that at least a few of them would probably be deal-breakers eventually. He knew even the girls who found him kinda charming and awesome to begin with never felt that way for long, and if he tried to push Kurt to choose...  
  
He'd wondered once why Brittany didn't give a shit that Santana spent like every night getting naked with him. This was back before he was dating Kurt, when the only evenings Santana wasn't in his bed were the ones where he was cleaning a pool or two because the sun set so late in the summer and a lot of husbands in town were in that golf league and didn't get home until after 8:30. Brittany had answered with the closest thing to wise Puck had ever heard from her:  
  
"Some sweet lady kisses are better than none."  
  
As of now, right this second...he had some of Kurt. That was more than he'd ever had with Quinn, so he knew it was an advantage over the alternative. If he made Kurt choose, there was no way he'd win. Nevermind that this guy like barely freaking knew him. Nevermind that the guy was a total wuss and had practically burst into tears over his first slushie. If he made Kurt pick between him and Blaine, Blaine would win and it would be like last year all over again - except without the pregnancy this time.  
  
He remembered how shitty it felt, watching with Quinn with Finn everywhere they went, wanting to be with her and knowing she was never gonna pick him - she didn't just imply it, she flat-out freaking said it every chance she got. That shit  _hurt_  and he was man enough to admit it. When Kurt picked Blaine?  
  
Some Kurt was better than none.  
  
He just had to keep telling himself that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four more fics remain to be uploaded in this series.


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